Elmwood Hardware, a fixture-selling fixture of the Berkeley scene for 84 years, will close next month for extensive remodeling, said owner Tad Laird. 

Whether it will reopen remains in question, he said. 

Bolfing’s Elmwood Hardware, at 2951 College Ave., first opened its doors in 1923 and has served the neighborhood continuously ever since. 

“We have to empty the store to do our remodeling. While we will keep our fingers crossed, there’s no guaranteeing that we will reopen as a hardware store,” Laird said. 

The space now occupied by the store will be subdivided into two commercial spaces, “and we hope to be able to get one of them open by Christmas,” he said. 

Whatever happens, the change is good news for Johnny Williams, who owns the building’s other tenant, Boss Robot Hobby at 2953 College. 

“He’s told us that we’ll be getting half the hardware store space, and we can really use it,” said Williams. “We’ve outgrown this space several times over. So at least some good will come out of it.” 

The hardware store is a popular neighborhood institution, but Laird has said the relatively small size of the store and a lack of in-house warehouse space has made business difficult. 

One possible clue to the store’s fate was posted on the store’s front window along with “sale” signs Wednesday night, a SPACE FOR LEASE sign advertising 1,550 square feet of prime retail space. 

The hardware store has to vacate before the first phase of work can begin, which will see the removal of hazardous building materials such as asbestos and possible lead-based paint. 

“We hope to have all the merchandise out by the middle of September, and though I may be overly optimistic, we’d like to be open again by Christmas.” 

But just who will occupy the hardware store’s remaining half of the space remains in question. 

The building’s other tenant, Elmwood Stationers, will remain in its current space at 2947 College to the north of the hardware store. 

The potential closing of one of the avenue’s last neighborhood-serving businesses may mark the end of an era, said one nearby merchant. 

Storefronts that once accommodated cobblers, a drug store, and other merchants and services that catered to those within walking distance have become the home to restaurants and upscale vendors serving a regional clientele.  

Expansion plans shot down 

At Laird’s own request, Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) declared the building at 2947-53 College Ave. a city landmark 13 months ago. 

During the same session, he presented commissioners with his plans to raise the building to three floors, adding office and warehouse space and four units of senior-oriented housing. 

Commissioners praised his proposal, which includes the restoration of the storefront to its original design, but his proposal ran aground over the housing when city planning department staff turned thumbs down. 

“They said they could not support variances needed for the project, but they said wished us all the best,” said Laird. “But I’ve talked with people at city hall who said this is just the kind of project the city needs.” 

The problem? His proposal called for too much building for the size of the site. 

Laird and his architects, Charles Kahn and Todd Poliskin of Kahn Design Associates of Berkeley, had worked closely with an LPC subcommittee to fine-tune their plans before submitting them to the city for permits. 

“The main goal is to design this with a public-space focus,” said Laird when he presented his plans to the LPC last year. “It’s an important building in the heart of the neighborhood and we are posting all the designs and drawings on the Kitchen Democracy website because it has been our intention from the start to get as much feedback and comment from the public as possible.” 

The question put to Kitchen Democracy participants was “Should Elmwood Hardware renovate the store and build four housing units?” 

But the project ran up against the Elmwood’s zoning regulations, the city’s strictest in their limits on mandated maximum floor space areas of commercial buildings. 

Elmwood codes restrict commercial buildings to floor space that occupies no more the 80 percent of the total lot area—except for corner lots, where total coverage is allowed. 

By contrast, Laird’s project calls for 180 percent coverage (100 percent on one floor, 80 percent on the other), which means that the structure could only be built if the Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) voted to grant a variance. 

ZAB would have to approve another variance because the building’s 19.5-foot height is 18 inches more than the codes allow, and yet another to permit a third floor where the codes allow only two. 

Laird put the proposal to participants in Kitchen Democracy, an online interactive website devoted to community issues, and received an overwhelming endorsement.  

Of the 406 responses from individuals who had registered with the site, 377 voted their support, with only 14 opposed, 13 voting “maybe” and a lone responder declaring neutrality. 

The ‘other’ project 

Laird points to the Kitchen Democracy numbers generated by his project in comparison with another variance-needing project that did win staff support and ZAB—and City Council—approval, John Gordon’s Wright’s Garage at 2629-2936 Ashby Ave. 

Gordon’s project also survived an appeal to the City Council, which rankled the Elmwood Merchant’s Association because of the variances ZAB granted increasing the number of restaurants and clothing stores permitted above the commercial neighborhood’s already overstrained quota system. 

Merchants also worried that customers drawn to the restaurant and exercise club proposed as two of the building’s tenants would compound an already vexing neighborhood parking problem. 

Kitchen Democracy responders also got to weigh in on Gordon’s project, and while their votes amounted to just more than half of those who expressed their opinion’s on Laird’s project, the renovated garage also emerged with a resounding set of upthrusting thumbs—173 yes to 20 negatives, 23 maybes and a single neutrally disposed voter. 

“That project could get approved with all its impacts on the neighborhood, but when you try to put in four units of housing and preserve an 84-year-old family business, you get shot down,” he said. 

Laird said he’s also frustrated that his city councilmember can’t offer support. Gordon Wozniak had been forced to recuse himself from voting an appeal of Gordon’s project to the council by members of the merchant’s group and the Elmwood Neighborhood Association, and he had also expressed a positive opinion about Laird’s project on the same website. 

“Can you imagine if members of Congress couldn’t speak out on projects they supported?” asked Laird. 

The vote to hear the appeal of Gordon’s project failed 4-2-2, with five votes needed for the hearing, with Councilmember Darryl Moore absent and Betty Olds and Mayor Tom Bates voting for approval without a hearing.  

But the store owner said he plans to move ahead with the remodeling of his commercial space with the hope that the city will eventually look more favorably on the larger project. 

Meanwhile, Laird said he’ll build what he can and hope for the best.  

Hobby store owner Williams is the one person who’s thoroughly delighted. 

“We’re eager to get more space, and we love this neighborhood,” he said. “We live here, too. It’s our fourth year.”

Angel Bertha Elzy has been waiting for a house since 1983.  

On Wednesday Elzy’s hopes were shattered when the Berkeley Housing Authority voted to erase the existing low-income public housing waiting list and start afresh. 

The lists, said housing authority executive director Tia Ingram, were inaccurate. The housing authority wiped clean as many as 5,000 names on the affordable housing waiting list and has asked everyone to apply again to determine whether they are eligible. 

“We struggled a lot about what to do with this list,” Ingram told the board during Wednesday’s public meeting. “In November we attempted to salvage some people on that list. Our effort was not successful. Do we have accurate information in any of our reports? I don’t know. What’s a fair, clean way to do it? I don’t know. Anything short of a new list is riddled with challenges from the past.” 

Rocked by a recent scandal that led to the resignation of former Housing Department Director Steve Barton and the formation of a new governing body independent of the city, the agency called the decision to abolish the existing lists a difficult one. 

“I understand the difficulty of trying to come up with a fair way to do it,” said member Adolph Moody, who abstained from voting. “I am blessed because I live in a house. At this point I don’t have the conscience to go ahead and purge the list. It’s not because I think I have a better solution. I can’t prove anything and feel for all of you. I can’t deny anyone.” 

The board’s 5-1 vote will also allow families potentially eligible for three- and four-bedroom units five business days to get on the new low-income public housing waiting list. An independent agency hired by the agency will review the applications. 

The low-income public housing program was privately managed by Affordable Housing Associates (AHA) from September 2003 through June 2007, during which AHA was responsible for drawing families from the wait list to fill vacancies. 

After AHA’s contract was terminated in June, the Berkeley Housing Authority took over this responsibility. While preparing to fill five vacant units, agency staff stumbled across a multitude of inaccuracies and decided to purge the list. 

“We learned that there were three different versions of the wait list,” Ingram’s report to the agency stated. “The active list that had been used by AHA for the preceding four years and two separate and distinct wait lists that were being retained by two BHA staff members.” 

The report further states that after studying each of the internal waiting lists and consulting with those previously responsible for them, agency staff were unable to determine whether either of the two lists were “the” list or whether to combine both lists into one. 

The AHA list met the same fate. 

“The papers report up to 5,000 families will be taken off the wait list, but that number is at the extreme high end,” Ingram said. 

According to Ingram’s report, the largest list dated back to 1999 and contained over 5000 applicants, including those that only qualified for one- or two-bedroom assistance. 

“These applicants should have been removed from the list because they did not qualify for placement on the wait list for three- and four-bedroom units.” 

Staff’s proposal to abolish the existing waiting list and create a new one was approved by both the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Stephen Schneller, Director of Public Housing.  

However, a number of people at the meeting vociferously opposed the move. 

“I think it’s horrible,” Elzy said as she broke down into tears. “They have been taking me through hell. I applied in the early ’80s and then they made me reapply again in 2000. And I am still waiting. I am living on and off in Berkeley and Oakland. I am practically homeless. I am devastated by the news.” 

Lorin Cook, a diabetic, demanded the reason for being dropped over the years to number 934 when at one time she was number 108 on the waiting list. 

“People need to have proof,” she told boardmembers. “What is the excuse for this?” 

Rent Board commissioner Jesse Arreguin called the decision drastic. 

“It will have serious implications for tenants in Berkeley,” he said. “How are you going to process the new applicants? I am not sure you have the capacity to do so.” 

“The lists are invalid and the only solution is to start all over again,” said commissioner Allen. “It’s important to create a system to prevent this from happening again.” 

“What could be done to ensure that this does not happen again?” asked commissioner Marjorie Cox. 

Ingram said that the new list would be static and password protected and it would form the baseline for the future. 

“We would also be keeping notes everyday for our knowledge,” she said. 

“It pains me to establish a new list,” said commissioner Dorothy Hunt. “But we have to start somewhere. Everybody will be affected but we can start clean.” 

Lynda Carson, founder of the group Save Berkeley Housing Authority, condemned the decision to abolish the lists. 

“It’s shocking news to all the low-income tenants who did everything they had to do to receive assistance,” she told the Planet. 

“It’s a slap in their face. A lot of people call the housing authority every day to check where they are on the list. They will have to start all over again.” 

Carson added that a lot more people would be signing up for the new list. 

“If we compare what happened in Oakland in June 2006,” she said. “Over 40 percent of Oakland’s low-income families signed up for the list. People are very desperate. These are hard times for everybody.” 

Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee. 

Angel Bertha Elzy is comforted by friends after learning her place on the low-income public housing waiting list was purged Wednesday at the Berkeley Housing Authority meeting.

A new kind of battle is brewing on Telegraph Avenue. Those who are leading the fight say it is not against religion, or against freedom of speech, but they contend that some religious speech on the street is just too loud. 

Neighbors, merchants and activists stood on the corner of Telegraph and Haste Wednesday to protest the weekly sermonizing of the Bay Area Ministries, which they say is too loud. 

“We are not anti-Christ, we are not anti-religion, but we are anti-noise,” said Russell Bates, a prominent figure on Telegraph, who has been protesting against the ministry. “They have been doing it for 15 years but it’s gotten to the point that the sound level is disturbing people who live, work or simply pass by in the area.” 

The Bay Area Ministries, an Evangelical Christian ministry based out of Oakland, argued they were below the legal decibel level. 

“We have been at Telegraph and Haste for about 15 years now and we have never been found in violation,” said Lawrence Rosenbeum, a ministry member. 

“The last couple of weeks we’ve had a number of extra outreaches but normally we are there only on Saturdays. We are not out there to disturb people, we are just trying to make sure that people can hear us.” 

Gyen, who works at Telegraph Flowers across the street, said the noise drives her customers away. 

“I can’t battle these guys and do my job too,” she said, selling potted orchids to two UC Berkeley undergrads. “I am here when they arrive and I am here when they leave. They are so loud that I can’t hear myself on the phone and my customers just get aggravated. Whenever I walk up to them and complain it always gives rise to conflict.” 

Gyen added that calls to the police led to a cat-and-mouse game between the ministry’s members and the city. 

“They send down a man with the decibel meter and he spends some time checking the noise level,” she said. “But the ministry has its own decibel meter and they try to keep it at the edge. It’s a huge waste of police tax dollars. They are completely abusive to the system. As far as I am concerned, it could be my favorite band but when it’s rattling on that loudly for four hours it’s too much.” 

Rick, who sells African jewelry on the corner of Telegraph and Haste, agreed. “What annoys me is that they turn the volume down when the police arrive but turn it up again when they leave,” he said. “It scares people away from my shop. That’s not what Jesus preached.” 

Marc Weinstein, who co-owns Amoeba Records, called the noise problem a nuisance. 

“A lot of times I have had to pay $4,000 out of my pocket to purchase permits for that corner to keep them from being there,” he told the Planet over a telephone interview from Los Angeles. “It has a terrible impact on my business. Our customers are not interested in their messages. It just creates a big ruckus. I pay $31,500 in rent for my space and these people pay $36 for a permit to disrupt my business. I want the city to stop people from holding amplified events. It’s cutting into their own efforts to make Telegraph better.” 

Weinstein said he resented the fact that most people preaching on behalf of the ministry were from outside the community. 

“They have people from Colorado and Iowa out there,” he said. “I want them to stop standing on my corner and stop ruining my best business days. The city should be more calculated about the places these people should be allowed to preach.” 

Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, spokesperson for the Berkeley Police Department, said that the BPD had responded to a fair number of complaints about the amplified music. 

“Community members were particularly upset about the noise levels on Aug. 16,” she said. “Recently, we also received a complaint about an ADA issue which said the ministry was blocking right-of-way on the pavement.” 

Manuel Ramirez, Berkeley environmental health manager, told the Planet he was aware of the community’s concerns. 

“The city is monitoring the problem,” he said. “We issue amplification noise permits to them like many other organizations. Noise levels are also monitored regularly. The standard for that area is background level plus 10 decibels 50 feet from the source. If they violate that we can revoke their permit.” 

Telegraph merchants said they were concerned about the ministry’s attempts to increase their time from four to 36 hours every month. 

“It’s just too much,” said Bates. “They must conform to their permit. If they don’t do something about it, we will. That’s not a threat, it’s a promise.” 

Ramirez said that the only new permits that had been sought from the city were for two events for Sept. 8 and two in October and November. 

But for people on Telegraph, the problem doesn’t stop at noise. 

“They are unruly and rude,” said Ann Marie, an activist. “They shove their pamphlets on my face and when I protest they gave me a look that sort of says you are going to burn in hell.” 

“They condemned the tarot card reader to hell the other day,” quipped Bates. “They need to find a new location.” 

Rosenbeum said that all the group did was preach about Jesus Christ and play Christian music. 

“We don’t force anything on anyone,” he said. “And when the police tell us to turn down the volume we do.” 

Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee.  

Russell Bates protests against the Bay Area Ministries outside Telegraph Flowers Wednesday. He is joined by the store’s florist Gyen and Berkeley resident Michael Delacour. 

San Pablo Park—the West Berkeley recreation center that served as a social and sports mecca for East Bay African Americans in the heavily segregated years before World War II and became the symbol of Berkeley’s legendary ethic of ethnic diversity—turns 100 this month, and local officials and residents are honoring it this Saturday with a centennial celebration. 

The free, all-day festival sponsored jointly by the City of Berkeley, the San Pablo Neighborhood Council and the San Pablo Park community includes entertainment by Latin jazz artist Pete Escovedo and Trinidadian musical storyteller Ashiba, as well as food booths and youth and adult activities. 

The day’s events will also include the unveiling of a community mural and a plaque for longtime park leader Frances Albrier, coordinated by Berkeley historian Donna Graves. 

The park is located on Park Street between Russell and Ward. 

When the park was purchased by the City of Berkeley in 1907 for $35,000, making it the city’s oldest recreation area. Berkeley was a far different community than it is today. While the city was experiencing a population boom, jumping from a little over 13,000 residents in 1900 to more than 40,000 in 1910, it was still considered a largely undeveloped hinterlands. Vintage photographs show much of the edge of the bay, a vast, open marsh, and acres of farmlands running up into wooded, unpopulated hills. 

According to Berkeley, “A City in History,” by Charles Wollenberg, published online by the Berkeley Public Library, “in 1900 there were only 66 black residents in Berkeley … But after the turn of the century, black professionals and prosperous blue collar workers began to settle in Berkeley. In spite of the overall climate of discrimination, Berkeley had a reputation for relative tolerance. In South Berkeley, blacks could buy inexpensive homes in well-kept, mixed neighborhoods. The African American population steadily increased, to 500 in 1920, 2,000 in 1930 and 3,000 in 1940. By the beginning of World War II, Oakland and San Francisco had more black residents than Berkeley, but among Bay Area cities, Berkeley had the highest proportion of African Americans in its population, about 4 percent.” 

The largest ethnic community in West Berkeley at the time of the San Pablo Park purchase was Finnish, and the area was popularly called Finntown. But in the intervening years, a small number of African American middle class residents began buying up property and building homes around the edge of the park, and they gradually turned the park and the adjacent neighborhood into an East Bay center of African American social life in much the same way that West Oakland, with a larger black population, became the center of African American musical entertainment during the same period.  

By the 1920s, San Pablo Park was one of the regular stops for barnstorming Negro League baseball teams, and sports fans would come from all over the Bay Area to see such legendary players as Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, and Josh Gibson compete against teams made up of local African American players. 

Richmond resident Betty Reid Soskin, now a ranger with the United States Park Service, remembers riding from her home in East Oakland with her grandfather, George Allen, in the 1930s on Sundays to sell pralines, a homemade Louisiana candy delicacy, at Negro League barnstorming ballgames. 

The park was also the home of African American tennis tournaments between Northern and Southern California players, some of which had local participants—like a young Oakland resident Lionel Wilson, later a California Superior Court judge and Oakland’s first black mayor—who went on to social or political prominence. 

But San Pablo Park was a place where residents of all races were able to meet and mix long before that was fashionable. 

In a February 2006 article on a gathering to honor park pioneer Frances Albright, the Daily Planet wrote that “while restrictive real estate covenants kept Asians and African Americans from renting or purchasing homes in other parts of Berkeley during the early 20th century, the area around San Pablo Park was open to minorities. The result was a neighborhood mix where whites, Asians and African Americans grew up with each other, played together and went to school together at nearby Longfellow. 

“One San Pablo Park veteran—UC Berkeley Phi Beta Kappa Elizabeth Gee—related how the South Berkeley community in the ’20s and ’30s was a racial oasis in a desert of discrimination. Gee related how her mother, a Chinese-American, was forced by the U.S. government to give up her United States citizenship when she married Gee’s father, a Chinese national. Gee later had to leave California to marry her own husband—who was white—because California law through World War II prevented marriage between the races—identical to the laws of the Jim Crow segregated South at the time.” 

Another park regular during the ’20s and ’30s who epitomized San Pablo’s racial mix was Johnny Valiotis, whose Greek parents owned a grocery store in the area. Valiotis hung out with the black kids in the park and neighborhood, mostly playing music, and later changed his last name to Otis and his racial identity to African American, becoming the legendary rhythm and blues band leader and composer Johnny Otis. 

“It is great to be able to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of San Pablo Park and still see that it is as vibrant and active as ever,” Councilmember Darryl Moore said in a statement. “This park is a testament to how vital open space is to building community.”

Berkeley’s oldest tree-sitter, two Panoramic Hill residents, and two Berkeley landmark commissioners—one current, one former—have joined forces to file a legal challenge to expansion plans at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). 

The petition for a writ of mandate lodged in Alameda County Superior Court last Friday challenges the UC Board of Regents’ July 17 adoption of the environmental impact report (EIR) for the lab’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) 2026 and the LRDP itself. 

If successful in their request for an order halting efforts to move forward with new projects, the action could delay plans to build a new lab building to house the controversial $500 million BP-funded Energy Biosciences Institute. 

The plaintiffs are Berkeley residents Sylvia McLaughlin, Janice Thomas, Hank Gehman, Anne Wagley and Lesley Emmington. (Wagley is the Daily Planet’s Arts and Calendar editor.) 

Their action constitutes the third pending legal challenge to UC Berkeley’s massive expansion plans for the coming decades. 

“We just thought this was an important thing to do because we are concerned about safety issues and the cumulative impacts of all the projects” on the community, said Sylvia McLaughlin, one of the founders of the Save the Bay organization, who sat in a threatened oak tree near Memorial Stadium in protest of the university’s expansion plans in that area of the campus. 

Terry Powell, the lab’s community relations officer, said she couldn’t comment on the action because she hadn’t seen the court papers—though she had been aware that an action was pending. 

“We believe the 2006 LRDP as certified by the Board of Regents is adequate,” said Dan Krotz of the lab’s media relations staff. 

The petition seeks a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction blocking the regents from taking an action to launch projects at the lab that are covered by the LRDP, and for a writ voiding the board’s certification of the EIR and approval of the planning document. 

If successful, the action would force the university to draw up and certify a new EIR responding to the challenges raised by the critics before the projects in the LRDP could move forward. 

The case has been assigned to Judge Frank Roesch, and a preliminary settlement conference has been scheduled for Oct. 31. 

The EIR approved by the regents outlines impacts of new construction planned for the 203-acre site on the scenic slopes of Strawberry Creek Canyon, including: 

• 980,000 square feet of new construction and demolition of 320,000 feet of existing buildings, making for a net increase of 660,000; 

• Addition of 375 to 500 new parking spaces, the precise number depending on whether or not the university develops alternative transportation programs; 

• About 1,000 new employees above the current 4,375. 

The lab, administered by the university under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy, is the center of a wide range of research, including projects involving two controversial forms of new technology, nanoparticles and genetically modified organisms (GMO). 

BP site included 

Both technologies will be employed in the Helios Building, where BP-funded research as well as projects funded from other sources will be seeking new forms of energy demanded by the specter of diminishing oil supplies, national security issues and the reality of global warming. 

The university has already issued a call for bids on the project, which are to be opened on Sept. 11. 

That $160 million, 160,000-square-foot Helios Building near the western end of the lab campus is one of two projects the regents have already approved under the provisions of the new LRDP and its EIR.  

The second structure is a $90.4 million, 140,000-square-foot, 300-office state-of-the art computing research center. The Computational Research & Theory Building will rise at the western end of the 203-acre LBNL a short distance from Blackberry Gate.  

Attorneys Michael Lozeau and Douglas Chermak of Alameda are representing the plaintiffs in the action filed in Alameda County Superior Court. 

Named as defendant is the UC Board of Regents, and the action seeks to overturn the board’s approval of the LRDP, their certification of the plan’s EIR and their approval of mitigations, monitoring plans and related items. 

Lozeau and his law firm specialize in environmental law, and the action cites as its ground alleged violations of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). 

They are seeking a stay of the board’s decisions on the LRDP and its EIR, a temporary restraining order barring the regents from any actions to implement any site-specific projects government by the LRDP and EIR. 

They are also asking the court for a writ of mandate ordering the board to reverse its decisions on the documents, a suspension of all activities specified by them until the court decides in any changes need to be made. 

The suit also asks for an order to prepare a new EIR, and to order the university to pay the costs of the lawsuit, including attorney fees and whatever other sums the court may determine. 

Other actions 

A second set of lawsuits challenging yet another UCB regents-approved EIR is also underway in the Alameda County courts. 

That action challenges the approval of the EIR for the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects, including the four-story gym and office complex planned at the site of the oak grove along the western wall of memorial stadium. 

A hearing on that case is set for mid-September. 

Several actions have been combined into one case, with plaintiffs including the City of Berkeley, City Councilmember Dona Spring, the Panoramic Hill Association and the California Oaks Foundation. 

Wagley is also a plaintiff in a third suit challenging another university LRDP—or rather, the settlement that ended a City of Berkeley lawsuit challenging the LRDP for the main campus through 2020. 

After losing an April decision before Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jo-Lynne Q. Lee, Wagley and co-plaintiffs Dean Metzger, Jim Sharpe and Carl Friberg filed an appeal before the state Court of Appeals which is now pending.

Solemn-faced members of the Oakland Unified School District board gave fellow board member Chris Dobbins the severest possible reprimand on Wednesday night, voting 5-2 to censure him “in the strongest possible terms,” stripping him of committee assignments, and requesting his resignation for what the board called “unethical, unprofessional, and inappropriate conduct” regarding Dobbins’ contact with a 17-year-old district high school student.  

Dobbins and board member Kerry Hamill cast the two votes against the resolution. A large number of Dobbins’ supporters attended the special board meeting, several of them speaking in favor of Dobbins and against the censure motion.  

Meanwhile, the board released for the first time details of the allegations against Dobbins, including late-night parking with the student in secluded East Bay spots and emails that indicated a relationship that—while not necessarily sexual—had gone far beyond mentoring. 

Board member Greg Hodge, who chaired the committee that investigated the allegations against Dobbins and made the censure and resignation request, said that the board action was necessary because “this board can have no tolerance for certain types of behavior … we need to distance ourselves from that,” and said that “if a 35-year-old man tried to date one of my daughters, we’d be having another kind of conversation.” 

Dobbins, who earlier appeared alternately angry and visibly shaken as fellow board members took turns to lecture him from their seats across the OUSD board chambers, said in a public statement following the vote that he would not resign.  

And while Dobbins added, “I could have used better judgment,” and, “if [the student involved] felt I overstepped my bounds, then I apologize for that.” The first-term board member criticized the findings against him and tried to minimize his actions, saying, “I don’t feel the investigation was conducted in a totally ethical manner,” and “at the end of the day, I didn’t steal any money or anything like that.” 

Dobbins later told reporters, “I don’t think I should be censured.”  

But during the board meeting, Dobbins seconded and then voted for Hamill’s substitute motion that would have censured him only, dropping the call for his resignation and the stripping of his committee assignments. 

Hamill said that she considered censure “serious,” and that “stripping him of his board responsibilities does an injustice to the residents of his district who elected him.” 

But while calling Hamill’s concerns and substitute resolution “positive,” board member Gary Yee said, “the alleged conduct stepped over a professional line. It’s important for the men on this board to exemplify actions towards women, especially the actions of older men towards younger women. Much as I would like to support a more modest resolution, a censure alone would water down the message.” 

Board member Alice Spearman told Dobbins that while “I don’t take any joy in supporting this censure, it sounded like you made light of the situation” when Dobbins complained that other board members had not gotten censured for other deserving actions.  

“Right now, I wouldn’t trust you with any female student,” Spearman said. “You still have a lot of stuff to offer to the district. That’s your being. But you’ve got to use better judgment.” 

And board member Noel Gallo said that the censure resolution was “not a political vendetta against Mr. Dobbins” but a test for the district. “You judge any institution by what it believes, what it values, and what standards it lives by.”  

Gallo, who was the first board member to call for Dobbins’ resignation following the allegations and had been one of his sharpest critics, then said, “forgiveness is the way to heal” and walked across and shook Dobbins hand. 

In making its recommendation, a three-member board committee made up of Hodge, Noel Gallo, and Alice Spearman issued a report that gave details of the allegations that caused OUSD State Administrator Kimberly Statham to contact the Department of Youth Services last month about complaints her office had received about Dobbins. The DYS referral led to an Oakland Police Department investigation that ended with no criminal charges filed against Dobbins. 

In a section entitled “Statement of Corroborated Facts,” the report said that Dobbins developed a friendship with the 17-year-old student, who Dobbins said he was mentoring, over the course of several months. The report noted that on the night when the student graduated, Dobbins picked her up at 2 in the morning from where the student was staying at an Emeryville hotel and drove her to the Berkeley Marina, where they parked. The student told board members that the two kissed and hugged in the car while at the Marina, but Dobbins denies those allegations. 

The following day, two Oakland Unified School District staff members met with Dobbins over rumors the staff members had heard about Dobbins’ relationship with the student. Dobbins said on Wednesday that he learned “for the first time” during that meeting that the student had romantic feelings for him, and agreed with staff members that he would end his relationship with the student. 

Excerpts from email messages between Dobbins and the student, released with the report, confirmed that the relationship between Dobbins and the student had gone beyond that of mentoring. 

On the same day that staff members met with Dobbins and he promised to break off the relationship, the student wrote Dobbins, saying, “what happened last night, even if it wasn’t meant to be, definitely confirmed my feeling. I guess before I wasn’t sure what to think about you. I understand you have a girlfriend, and I always questioned myself if I was doing the right think by liking someone who is taken. … I can say you are everything I look for in a man.” The student wrote, however, that “you made it clear that we can’t be together.” 

Four days later Dobbins wrote back, addressing the student as “dearest” and saying that after reading her email, “I just have to say again that I have to listen to my head and not my heart … When the opportunity presented itself, I got scared because I am too old to be trying to get at you. In addition, it is unethical to do so. Plus, I have a girlfriend so I should not have been trying stuff in the first place.” 

But Dobbins continued to see the student at late hours, picking her up at her UC dorm room at 10 p.m. in early July, taking her to dinner, and then parking at Strawberry Canyon in Berkeley. 

Asked by reporters if that had not violated his pledge to staff members to break off the relationship, Dobbins said, “I was distancing myself from her, but I was doing it on my own terms. After that, I never saw her again.” 

Dobbins said that “I never did anything criminal with her,” saying that he often met with her at her request to discuss family and school problems that she was having, and that he met her during late hours because he was studying for the California Bar Exam and those were the times when he had finished studying.

On Thursday, the Berkeley Fire Department (BFD) threw the 16 residents of UC Berkeley’s fraternity Kappa Sigma out of their house for violating several fire safety codes, including not replacing a dysfunctional sprinkler system. 

“They’ve known since the end of school last year,” said David Orth, BFD public information officer. “They need to bring it up to code and for whatever reason, they haven’t.” 

In May, the BFD notified Kappa Sigma, on the 2400 block of Warring Street, of the violations. The fraternity hired workers to update their building facility. However, when BFD returned to the building on Thursday morning, the necessary renovations were not complete. 

“Now, the building cannot be used for normal occupancy,” said Orth. “We told everyone to move their things out by 3 p.m. Now only the workers can stay inside.” 

After outlining diversity and energy initiatives at his back-to-school press briefing Thursday, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau fended off top UC Regent Richard Blum’s criticism that the UC ten-campus system suffered from a “dysfunctional set of organizational structures, processes and policies.” 

Blum, in his analysis, called for a major overhaul of the UC system which would streamline fundraising and add to a diverse student body. 

Birgeneau, in a session with reporters, said that the analysis had referred to the UC system as a whole and not to any particular UC campus.  

He pointed out that UC Berkeley had already made significant improvements that had especially benefited students from economically challenged backgrounds. 

On Monday, the first day of fall semester at the university, more than 34,000 students will come across new facilities and new faces in top positions of leadership. 

“I’m excited about the start of another school year. We are moving forward on important areas of research and expanding opportunities for our students,” Birgeneau said. 

Enrollment is up since 2006 and 34,525 students are expected to register for the 2007-08 academic year. 

Asians at 36.4 percent dominate the new freshman and transfer students, with Caucasians (31.6 percent) and Latinos (12.4 percent) coming in at second and third places respectively. Ninety percent of the incoming students are from California. 

The total 2007-8 fees for a California undergraduate, including health insurance, stands at $8,384, an increase of $600 over the previous year. 

Gibor Basri, A UC Berkeley astrophysics professor, was named the new vice chancellor for equity and inclusion, a position created by Birgeneau to promote diversity within faculty, students and staff. 

Improved facilities on campus include state-of-the-art scientific and technological innovations and more parking spaces. 

The campus is scheduled to open Stanley Hall, which will house the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, and a bio-nano center for the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society in September. 

The chancellor also updated the press on the construction of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library/Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian Studies which will house the campus’ extensive East Asian collections. 

He added that the seismically unsafe Warren Hall, the former home of the School of Public Health, will be demolished in early 2008.  

The Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, a new five-story structure that will house teaching and research on stem cell research, will be constructed in its place. 

Speaking about UC Berkeley’s environmental responsibilities, Birgeneau said that the model program Cal Climate Action Partnership will launch pilot initiatives to reduce energy use on campus this fall. 

Projects include replacing incandescent bulbs with energy efficient fluorescent lighting and determining the eligibility of solar-panel installations.

The Berkeley Board of Education welcomed Javetta Robinson as the school district’s new deputy superintendent-chief financial officer at their first meeting after summer break Wednesday. 

Robinson, who most recently served as chief financial officer for the Oakland Unified School District, replaced outgoing deputy Eric D. Smith, who helped the Berkeley Unified School District attain greater financial stability and a balanced budget. 

District superintendent Michele Lawrence informed the board that Smith was leaving to return to his family in Southern California, from where he had been commuting the last two years. 

“We are in a stronger position than we were before and there are many challenges ahead, but I am sure we are going to have a great year,” said school board president Joaquin Rivera. 

Robinson brings ten years of public education experience to Berkeley. She started her career as an internal Auditor for Sacramento Unified and then went on to spend two years at Compton Unified in Southern California as the chief business officer. 

“Since Ms. Robinson’s path has crossed mine more than once in our careers, I was able to call on a few administrators whose judgment I know and trust and they gave her the highest recommendations,” Lawrence said in a statement. “Combined with what I’ve seen of her work in Berkeley I am confident in her abilities and the contribution she can provide to Berkeley.” 

Derby field  

The board approved a fee that would allow community groups to use the Berkeley High School East Campus field once it opens in September. 

Although the board approved the decision to look at an alternate “Curvy Derby” option for the field earlier this year, BHS and B-Tech students would be able to use it as an athletic field once it opens next month. 

If the board decides to implement the Curvy Derby plan, the current field will be replaced with a regulation-sized baseball diamond which would coexist with an open Derby Street. 

Since no rental rates exist for East Campus, district staff looked at fee schedules charged by the University of California and the City of Berkeley in order to establish the school district’s recommended fee. 

The hourly rates for the city fall between $15 and $35 while those for UC range from $40 to $200 per hour. 

BHS rents out its turf at between $36 (direct) and $102 (market) per hour. Based on this comparative data, the board approved a direct rate of $35 per hour and a market rate of $90 per hour. 

Lew Jones, facilities director for the district, explained that the direct rate pertained to youth and religious groups while the market rate was for everybody else. 

Board member Karen Hemphill questioned whether the community would be free to use the field during non-school hours. 

“I would hate to see the field sitting there and the community not being able to use it,” she said. “If I lived in the neighborhood and wanted to play frisbee there, will I be able to do that?” 

“The casual Frisbee player does not cause as much of a problem,” said Lawrence. “But organized groups would get this charge ... This is a new field and we have to have new dollars to take care of it. We have to make sure that the glass is removed and the dog feces cleared up. Somebody has to be hired to mow the lawn and clean it up. We need additional custodians to take care of that. The field has to be ready on Monday morning or the next time the athletic team wants to use it. And the money for that has to come from somewhere.” 

Hemphill stated that recreational facilities for the youth in South Berkeley was important, especially since the neighborhood lacked in them. 

Hillside surplus property 

The board approved the issuance of an RFP to hire a real estate consultant to study the Hillside Surplus Committee report before they marketed the property. 

The property—which is 2.85 acres—has a split-level three-story wood frame building and a portable building. Designed by Walter Ratcliff and built in 1926, the main building of the Hillside property has been designated a city and state landmark. 

Hillside has housed BUSD students in the past. It can no longer do so because a trace of the Hayward Fault is located under the main building. 

According to the staff report, it could take up to two years to dispose of the property. 

“I cannot wait two years,” said school board member Shirley Issel. “This property is rotting. I have a problem with the timeline.” 

Board president Joaquin Rivera directed staff to look at ways to revise the current timeline to make the process move faster.

The key document in the battle over the role of historic buildings in shaping the public face of tomorrow’s downtown will take definitive form Monday night. 

At least for the time being. 

The meeting that starts at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center (1901 Hearst Ave.) is the 14th session of a subcommittee comprised of four representatives each from the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC). 

The panel is hammering out their version of what will become either one of two possible chapters in the new downtown plan mandated by settlement of a city suit challenging UC Berkeley’s expansion plans through 2020. 

While the subcommittee members have reached amicable consensus among themselves, they have been facing an equally concerted push from five other DAPAC members who are not on the subcommittee, but most of whom have attended the subcommittee sessions offering their own comments and a counter-draft to the subcommittee’s work. 

DAPAC Chair Will Travis, Planning Commission Chair James Samuels, retired UC Berkeley development executive Dorothy Walker, former city Councilmember Mim Hawley and downtown Y advocate Jenny Wenk often find themselves at odds in DAPAC meeting with the four DAPAC members on the subcommittee: Zoning Adjustments Board member Jesse Arreguin, Patti Dacey, architect James Novosel and Wendy Alfsen. 

The LPC members of the subcommittee—Chair Steven Winkel, Robert Johnson, Carrie Olson and Jill Korte—are often teamed up as members of the commission’s strong preservationist majority. 

Samuels, during his time on the LPC prior to jumping to the Planning Commission, often voted against them, while Dacey—ousted from the LPC by Councilmember Max Anderson—teamed with the majority. 

Subcommittee members will be confronting three documents, two of them rival versions of the proposed chapter—one based on revisions from Travis, Samuels and the other three DAPAC-only members, and the other a revision of the subcommittee’s earlier draft by Dacey and Novosel. 

Both versions include changes made in the Dacey/Novosel draft during the subcommittee’s Aug. 13 meeting. 

The titles of the two documents reflect one of the key differences between the two groups. The subcommittee’s chapter is entitled Historic Preservation & Urban Design, while the rival draft is called Historic Preservation & New Construction. 

Subcommittee members will also examine the proposed Streetscapes and Open Space chapter for possible integration with their chapter. 

Whatever the subcommittee produces will then be subject to more changes by the full membership of DAPAC, which is charging toward a Nov. 30 deadline for completion of its work. 

The final version of the plan, after tweaking by city staff and the Berkeley Planning Commission, can’t be adopted by the city until it meets with the approval of the university and its planners—a condition of the settlement of the LRDP lawsuit. 

That settlement is facing a legal challenge currently pending before the state Court of Appeals. 

Two other DAPAC subcommittees are also scheduled to meet this week to put the finishing touches on their own chapters. Both meetings start at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Heart Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

The Transportation Subcommittee meets Tuesday, while the Housing and Social Services Subcommittee gathers the following night. 

Battery 

On Wednesday at 11:51 a.m., a 13-year-old boy called in to report that he was playing basketball behind a duplex on the 1700 block of Oregon when a 25-year-old man approached him, began calling him names, made fun of his tennis shoes, and said that his playing was “weak.” The man picked the boy up by the armpits and tried to throw him into a nearby garbage can. Another basketball player saw this happening and intervened but not before the suspect hit the boy in the stomach and began to choke him. 

Theft 

A Berkeley woman on the 2700 Fulton parked and locked her red 21-speed Peugeot cross-trainer hybrid bicycle, with a Canadian flag bumper sticker, to a pole at 1 a.m. in the morning on Wednesday. When she went to retrieve the bike at 10:30 a.m., the bike was gone. No suspects are in custody. 

Hit-and-run 

At 9:55 a.m. on Wednesday, a Berkeley woman on the 1300 block of Northside called in to report that a dark blue Nissan had struck her car and then taken off. Her car sustained minor front damage. No suspects have been identified. 

Connected robberies 

On Tuesday at 9:25 p.m., a 41-year-old Berkeley resident was walking west on Berkeley Way from Shattuck on the northside sidewalk when he heard people behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw two young men walking quickly towards him. One of the suspects had one of his hands under his hoody (as if to conceal a weapon). They confronted the victim and demanded his money. The second suspect went through the victim’s pockets and only found pocket change. The two took off eastbound on Berkeley Way. 

Fifteen minutes later, a 37-year-old Oakland man was walking eastbound on Berkeley Way towards Shattuck when he saw two young men approaching him. When they reached him, they pushed him against a fence at 2005 Berkeley Way. One of the suspects had his hand under his hoody, while the other suspect checked his pockets and took $300 from his wallet. They returned the wallet to the victim. The two fled westbound on Berkeley Way towards Milvia Street. The suspects are not in custody. 

Auto burglary 

On Tuesday, a 17-year-old Lafayette girl reported an auto burglary on the 800 block of Potter Street. She had parked her black ’99 Ford F250 at 8:30 p.m. When she returned at 10:10 p.m., she discovered that her purse and wallet (with cash, driver’s license, debit cards, and credit cards) were missing. The officer determined that a vandal had popped the window. 

Robbery 

On Tuesday at 10:32 p.m., a 28-year-old Oakland man, who works at a Chinese restaurant in Oakland, was delivering Chinese food on the 1400 block of Ward Street. When he reached the single-family dwelling, three male suspects hit the deliveryman. who fell to the ground. One man came behind him and grabbed his neck, while the other two yelled to get the driver’s money. Two of the three suspects examined the deliveryman’s pockets. He began to fight and scream. He suffered some abrasions to his elbows during the fall. The three suspects made off with the $33 worth of Chinese food and the contents of his pockets.

San Francisco shimmers in the distance, across from mountainous Marin. Tiny cars crawl across the Bay Bridge, Berkeley’s biggest buildings are toy-sized at the foot of the hills, and on a clear, fogless day there’s sometimes a glimpse of the Farallon Islands through the Golden Gate. 

Couples snuggle romantically in cars parked in dusty turnouts, facing the view. Locals point out the distant sights to newcomers, while motorcycles growl, sports cars zip, and bicyclists strain along the winding road behind them.  

A drive to Grizzly Peak Boulevard for the views is one of those short local excursions that we take for granted—like a springtime visit to the Berkeley Rose Garden, a fresh pastry at the Cheese Board, or a stroll on the Berkeley Pier. 

Once upon a time, however, ascending the ridge above Strawberry Canyon to see the views took several hours, a pair of good legs, and some vigorous hiking. It was only in 1932 that things changed.  

“A dream cherished by Berkeleyans for many years will come true tomorrow,” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported Saturday, Aug. 20, 1932. Three miles of public roadway running north from Fish Ranch Road to today’s intersection of Grizzly Peak and Centennial Drive were to open. 

At 1 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 21, 1932—exactly 75 years ago today—the “gates to the road” were flung wide and cars streamed along its length from both north and south, clotting together for a formal 2 p.m. dedication ceremony. 

“At the spot where the new boulevard passes just below the summit of Grizzly Peak, almost 1,800 feet about the level of San Francisco Bay, the vista of the East Bay Cities, rising up from the shores of the blue bay, provided an inspiring sight which attracted hundreds of automobile parties,” the Gazette reported. 

“From this vantage point yesterday afternoon, one could look directly out the Golden Gate with the dull purple of the Marin hills to the right and the shadowy pinnacles of San Francisco to the left—panorama of matchless beauty unequalled any place else in the world.” 

Credit for the road project was given to County Supervisor Redmond Staats, who had, the Berkeley Gazette reported, conceived the project and championed it through nearly a decade of planning, engineering, and funding decisions. 

The road was planned after the 1923 Berkeley Fire as a barrier against, and a way to reach and fight, wildfires before they could sweep down the hills into built-up districts. 

It also added a tourist attraction to Berkeley. By 1932, despite the Depression, automobile touring was popular. Millions of American households had acquired cars (“machines” in contemporary parlance) and street, highway, and bridge improvements were the order of the day.  

The “Sunday Drive”—a leisurely excursion after church to nowhere in particular—was coming into vogue, as was weekend tripping into the countryside, jaunting about town and even commuting by car. Berkeley was no exception. The completion of the crucial stretch of Grizzly Peak was just one of the local improvements under way.  

Down on the waterfront, then befouled by sewage outflow, plans were being made for an Eastshore highway that would allow drivers to bypass the congestion along San Pablo Avenue. The Bay Bridge was almost literally on the horizon; construction would begin in 1933. 

As they gathered at the crest of the hills, and lauded the completion of the Grizzly Peak route, local officials took particular note of its value in a car-oriented age. 

“The road brings to us one of the most beautiful scenic drives to be found any place in the world which will be enjoyed in the years to come, not only by the residents of Berkeley and the Bay Area, but also by thousands of tourists who will be driven over this boulevard by their friends,” said Charles C. Adams, managing director of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. 

A “car equipped with a loud speaker” and loaned by the Howard Automobile Company was positioned near the ceremony to broadcast the proceedings to the estimated 2,000 attendees. 

Berkeley Mayor Thomas C. Caldecott praised the road as “a dream which Berkeleyans have long looked forward to seeing accomplished.”  

Oakland’s Mayor Fred Morcom—through whose municipality the new road actually ran—then took the podium to proclaim it a “wonderful scenic highway” and publicly wishes for the day when there would be “unification of the entire East Bay, from Richmond to Hayward, into a single city,” a prospect which might have made much of his Berkeley-centric audience squirm with discomfort. 

The formal opening came with a snip of a ceremonial ribbon, scissors wielded by six-year old Patricia Connolly, daughter of the president of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.  

The road thus thrown open to traffic was not quite the Grizzly Peak of today. The 25-foot-wide surface was graveled, not paved, and still bereft of finished shoulders, railings, and signage. Tilden Park did not exist to the east. No university developments climbed higher than the Botanical Garden, and no Centennial Drive snaked through Strawberry Canyon to the summit.  

The university had not yet purchased the hillside “Wilson Tract” where much of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory would later be built. Residential subdivisions did not densely crowd the ridge lines north of campus and south of Claremont Canyon. 

Today, Grizzly Peak’s two lanes of asphalt accommodate not only automobile excursionists but motorcycle riders who gather at the vista points, recreational bicyclists and, increasingly, work commuters shortcutting more congested routes at lower elevations. Some commuters to the university’s Space Sciences laboratory even use the shoulders for parking during part of the year. 

Not all the cars stay on the shoulder. Tom Klatt, who manages a number of university projects in the Strawberry Canyon area, says that over the past several years he’s arranged to have 34 vehicles that came down from the road hauled out of the steep ravines of Strawberry and Claremont canyons. One area dubbed “parking lot gulch” yielded no less than eight old wrecks.  

Some tumbles are caused by crashes. Others, Klatt says, are pushed over the edge by joyriders and thieves. That practice has slowed since large logs, from eucalyptus clearance operations, were placed along the shoulders. 

Grizzly Peak remains a popular spot for sightseeing. Local historian Paul Grunland points out that with private development over the years, homes and trees have come to block once-public views from most other points along the ridgeline. 

Klatt adds that recent eucalyptus thinning operations, primarily carried out to reduce wildfire risk, have also opened up the Grizzly Peak views. Outdoors writer Tom Stienstra noted last December in the San Francisco Chronicle that Grizzly Peak was one of the “five best photo spots” of the Bay Area. 

“The sunsets, views and photo shots available from several turnouts on Grizzly Peak Boulevard can stun even longtime residents of the East Bay who have never taken the time to chase this one down,” he wrote. “This is one of the best spots close to an urban area to take in a sunset anywhere.” 

Most of those enjoying the photo and view opportunities today probably have no idea of the third justification for building the road: providing work for hundreds of Alameda County unemployed men, as the Depression deepened. 

The work crews, the newspapers reported, were divided into teams of “blue collar” unemployed who constructed the road and “white collar” jobless who did the finishing work.  

This fairly substantial project took place before Franklin Roosevelt’s election, and well before any of his New Deal programs that provided public works funding. In fact, as the road opened, Herbert Hoover was beginning his formal re-election campaign by telling the Republican National Convention that cutting taxes, not public spending, was the proper approach to economic ills. 

Many locals were in sympathy. Two days before praising the opening of the road, the Berkeley Gazette had editorialized that federal relief should be “a minor function of the federal government, and even a doubtful one,” and local communities should provide for their own.  

There’s a postscript to the grand opening. A few days later, the Gazette reported, “Berkeley’s new scenic boulevard … has been padlocked for being none too dry.”  

County Surveyor George Wilhelm had decided that “there are still quite a few finishing touches to be made, such as the building of shoulders and the installing of safety posts and fences … in places the road is being kept wet for several days in order to make the wide gravel highway solid.” Wilhelm soon relented, however, and the road was closed only at night. 

Perhaps the opening had been intentionally premature. Supervisor Staats was running for Congress, and the public lauding he received as visionary promoter of the new road was good publicity just before the primary election. The Berkeley Gazette—which endorsed Staats early and often—ran a front page photo of him below the headline “Dream Realized” on the day of the opening. 

It was a heated contest—with murky allegations of separate political scandals involving Staats and a candidate for his supervisorial seat—and less than two weeks after the road dedication, Staats was bested by a margin of only a few votes in the Republican primary.  

Back then, the Republican nomination for Congress was tantamount to election in a one-party town like Berkeley, just as the same is true for Democratic candidates today. Ralph Eltse took not only the primary from Staats but also the general election, despite the national Roosevelt landslide. 

Staats does not seem to have held elective office after his defeat, and today seems largely forgotten in the East Bay. Others who helped bring about the road—or who at least were prominent dignitaries at the opening—are better remembered.  

The name of former Berkeley Mayor Thomas Caldecott (who was elected supervisor to replace Staats) adorns the highway tunnel through the Berkeley Hills. Oakland Mayor Fred Morcom, who had also been in that 1932 Congressional primary scrum and placed fourth, behind Eltse and Staats, is remembered by Oakland’s Morcom Rose Garden.  

Even County Surveyor George Posey, who had managed the technical planning of the road, has his name on the Posey Tube, the underwater traffic tunnel from Oakland to Alameda. But Posey never lived to see Grizzly Peak Boulevard’s dedication. He died—an apparent suicide—a few weeks before the opening, as his office came under scrutiny for possible connections to a real estate scam.  

How To Get There: 

Grizzly Peak Boulevard above the UC campus can be reached from the south via the road up Claremont Canyon north (left) of the Claremont Hotel. Ascend the canyon and turn left at the four way summit intersection.  

From the UC campus, head up Centennial Drive behind Memorial Stadium to the top of the ridge above the Lawrence Hall of Science, and turn right.  

Spruce Street and Euclid Avenue in North Berkeley climb to Grizzly Peak Boulevard. Turn right and go south through the residential neighborhoods to reach the vista road. 

There are several dirt turnouts / viewpoints along Grizzly Peak. Take care with the blind curves, fast traffic, and steep shoulders along the road, and share the lanes with bicyclists.

It’s a well-known fact that the city of Berkeley has a worldwide reputation that far outweighs its size. First to settle here were squatters along the bay’s shoreline, attracted by accessible water and farmland. Later, the University of California acted like a magnet, drawing students and staff.  

That magnet continues to pull in all directions. Today, over 120 different languages and dialects are spoken within Berkeley’s 18-square miles. Diversity makes Berkeley unique and is reflected in its neighborhoods, each with its own brand of architecture, culture, parks and businesses. 

So, grab some friends and a bus pass and do some exploring. Discover them for yourself, select your favorites and leave a trail of breadcrumbs for a return visit. 

Cultural diversity rules in West Berkeley. From the Europeans and Chinese of the early 1900s and African American immigration during World War II to the recent influx of Latin Americans, Asian Americans and Southeast Indians, these cultures are its strength. 

Take bus line 51 down University Avenue to Berkeley’s economic engine, an eclectic mix of working-class neighborhood, light industry and thriving businesses. Here warehouses, repair shops and artists coexist among restored Victorians, small bungalows and dilapidated cottages, as well as Berkeley’s most effective retail district, Fourth Street. 

Explore Little India where the smells and colors send you eastward. Pop into fragrant Bombay Spice House, pulsing Bombay Music and dazzling Rupam saris for an all-senses feast. Vik’s Distributors and Chaat Café, on Allston Way, offers delicious fare at incredibly low prices. 

More culture awaits at Takara Sake on Addison Street, from its architectural design and crisp cool sakes to the 19th-century sake production artifacts within its museum. 

Discover hidden Strawberry Creek Park on Allston Way, tucked between residential streets. An expansive lawn and native plantings are the perfect view from an al fresco lunch at Café Zeste. 

North Berkeley is known for innovation in food, an epicurean groaning board. Traveling the length of Shattuck Avenue, along bus lines 9 and 18, you’ll find an interesting assortment of sense-tingling stimuli. What began as a neighborhood of railroad men and their families developed into a quiet, middle-class area. The advent of Peet’s Coffee, the Cheese Board and Chez Panisse put this area on the map. 

North Berkeley is also home to a number of successful collective businesses that support the “power to the people” spirit, including the Cheese Board and its Juice Bar and Pizza offshoots. The ACCI Gallery is an artists’ cooperative with collections of handcrafted jewelry, ceramics and glass. Its changing art exhibits are expressive and thought-provoking.  

After collecting vitals from the cornucopia of choices, amble up to Live Oak Park to picnic, join a basketball pick-up game, follow the paths across Codornices Creek and see what’s on view at the Berkeley Art Center, specializing in the avant-garde work of local artists.  

A day spent in Northbrae, on bus line 9, is a day spent within a mellow environment. From the Berkeley Public Library, at the Alameda and Hopkins Street, to the shops at Hopkins and California, family life thrives. Handsome California bungalows with well-cared-for gardens line streets shaded by mature trees. At the Martin Luther King School Park, joggers circle the track, kids swing and slide and tennis buffs lob balls over the net.  

This is where people shop for quality foods and plants, then linger for an alfresco coffee or lunch at Espresso Roma. Monterey Market has been around since 1961, selling “fruits and vegetables in season” and supporting local farmers. Cart-crowded aisles are lined with both the common and the esoteric, all at reasonable prices. Magnani Poultry sells prime meats, free-range poultry and prepared salads. Everything on offer at Monterey Fish is the freshest quality and sustainable, from eco-farmed Scottish salmon to Northern California oysters. For cheeses from around the world and inexpensive, bulk herbs and spices, try Country Cheese Market. 

An amble through Berkeley Horticultural Nursery will turn any thumb green, and is as satisfying as touring a botanic garden. Multiple choices in every category, helpful staff and a lovely setting make any visit a treat. 

Berkeley’s Elmwood district stretches along College Avenue on gentle terrain, reached by bus lines 9 and 51. This neighborhood invites lingering and strolling, past classic architecture, tree-lined streets, friendly shops, global cuisine and cultural venues. There’s a feeling here that you’ve arrived and aren’t in a hurry to leave. 

Pride in ownership is evident throughout Elmwood’s residential streets. Brown shingles trimmed in forest green and teal, broad front porches decked with Adirondack chairs and Queen Annes with small multi-paned windows make their statements elegantly. Gardens filled with roses and rhododendrons, framed by towering pines, palms and oaks complete the postcard scene. 

The arts are also alive here, starting with the Elmwood Theater. A City of Berkeley landmark, it has survived since 1914 and was saved by the Friends of the Theater in 1994. 

The Julia Morgan Center for the Arts could hold its own as the majestic lodge of a national park. This National Historic Landmark sets the scene for theater, dance and music performances. 

The Judah L. Magnes Museum, housed in a four-story brick mansion, displays art reflecting the global Jewish experience. Permanent and changing exhibits in distinctive galleries seek to promote understanding and commonalities. 

East of Arlington Avenue and upward into the hills is the last Berkeley area to be developed, the Berkeley Hills. Streets named after California counties follow the contours of the land, steeply to the top. The hills can be reached by bus lines 52L and 65. 

With no business district, this is a great place for walking, ideally using the network of pathways and steps that were developed for easier access to streetcars and the university. 

Architecture keeps the walking interesting. Homes designed by Bernard Maybeck, John Hudson Thomas, Julia Morgan and John Galen blend harmoniously with those of more modern design. 

Berkeley’s unique parks make good destinations for admiring flora and fantastic views or just having fun. The Berkeley Rose Garden, on Euclid Avenue, is home to over 3,000 bushes and 250 varieties, planted in tiers overlooking the bay. Across the street, Codornices Park offers an expansive lawn, groves of oak, bay and redwood and a 40-foot concrete slide. 

AC Transit information is available at www.actransit.org or by phone at 511. 

The Map of Berkeley Pathways is an excellent street map. Buy it at local bookstores or order at their website at www.berkeleypath.org, $4.95 

Photo by Marta Yamamoto 

There’s always a crowd at Northbrae’s Public Library, enjoying both its indoor and outdoor facilities.

A few things I wish someone had told me when I moved here, and a few things I’ve learned since: 

If you need prescription drugs and aren’t on UC’s health plan: You don’t have to be a Costco member to use the Costco pharmacy. Tell the doorfolks on the way in what you’re there for. By the way, if you have medical insurance and want to know what a drug will cost you, don’t ask the pharmacy folks because they won’t know until the claim goes through. Ask your insurer; there should be a phone number on the back of your card.  

Oakland’s airport is much more navigable and civilized than San Francisco’s. If you do go to SFO, be sure your vehicle is less than six and a half feet tall including racks, pods, carriers, or you’ll have to park it in the International Arrivals garage.  

When Two-Buck Chuck won’t do, The Spanish Table sells good inexpensive wines and gives decent wine advice for free.  

The East Bay Vivarium is a store but it’s also a good free zoo; don’t go there in large parties though, as it’s a small space. Also don’t go there if you don’t love spiders and snakes, or get indignant when small animals are fed to larger animals. And don’t tap on the glass! 

Another good freebie: Golden State Bonsai Federation’s Northern California collection at Lake Merritt, Oakland.  

Grocery Outlet at the foot of University Avenue is good for East Coast nostalgia chow as well as bargains. Hellmann’s mayonnaise! (Yes, Best Foods really is the same stuff. Nevertheless.) No one out here knows from chili sauce; also, if you get chili on anything or by itself it’ll most likely have cumin in it. Might as well cultivate a taste for the stuff.  

Tokyo Fish on San Pablo Avenue near Gilman, across from Mealticket, gets fresh poi on Wednesdays. You might find frozen poi there or at many other Japanese markets, but it won’t get sour. Mealticket’s worth a visit too for breakfast or lunch. Get a scone. Great scones.  

Those aren’t the world’s biggest mosquitoes; those are craneflies. They don’t bite. They just bumble around and maybe lose a leg or two if you try to catch them. Completely harmless. Some of us consider them the first sign of spring.  

Those aren’t rainclouds either; they’re fogbanks. It probably won’t rain till late October, if then.  

There’s no poison ivy or poison sumac here, but there is poison oak. There are feral pokeberries on campus, too. Eucalyptus isn’t native. Fennel isn’t native. Ivy isn’t native. Those annual grasses all over the lion-colored hills aren’t native.  

Buying spiderplants (“airplane plants”) here is like buying snow in Antarctica. Ask around; someone will have babies for you to root in water. They grow quite well outdoors. So do geraniums; ask for cuttings.  

It is possible to use California bay laurel to substitute for a true bay leaf in cooking, but use only a very small part of a leaf instead of a whole one. The taste isn’t quite identical but most folks think it’s OK.  

Watch for free in-store concerts at Amoeba, Rasputin’s (Telegraph), or Down Home (Fourth Street).  

It used to be called the Albany Landfill, now it’s the Albany Waterfront Park. It’s at the end of Buchanan Street just north of Golden Gate Fields. It starts with a level scrub-covered plateau across from the parking lot. From there you walk up to a narrow strip of land jutting out into the water called the Neck. This is the beginning of the Albany Waterfront Trail. 

There’s a sign announcing that the California State Park system and the East Bay Regional Park require that dogs be kept on leash. The sign is hanging upside down. Off-leash dogs are an issue in the park. As are art works, and structures. And people—who they are and what they do and when they can be there. 

Beyond the sign you can take the lower trail along the water’s edge or the upper trail. Here there is a profusion of shrubs, trees, wildflowers that come and go with the seasons—and the periodic action of a bulldozer. At the end of the neck the trails merge and the land bulges out into the Bulb.  

Years ago the city of Albany negotiated a lease granting the Bulb to the California State Park system to be part of the East Bay Regional Park. The trouble is, the state doesn’t want it. There are rules and conditions which a state park has to conform to in order to be part of the system, things like no camping, no art, no off-leash dogs. 

The Bulb has a short but turbulent history. It started as a dump site for construction debris and for a time garbage and landscaping debris were trucked in. When that all stopped in 1983, a chunk of land had been created, sprouting flowers and grasses and bushes—“native” plants and “invasive species”—and even fruit trees, punctuated with twisted masses of rebar, broken concrete and all sorts of other construction materials. With the vegetation came wildlife, snakes and lizards, rabbits, squirrels, possum, and scores of birds. And soon, in spite of a fence around the place, came people.  

Homeless folks who had been camping along the railroad tracks and under freeways were drawn to this lush piece of land with the inspiring view where they could set up their own secluded little hideouts and live in relative tranquility. They built themselves shelters and created works of art out of the rubble and flotsam around them.  

Some were loners, others formed little “families.” To be sure, it wasn’t a utopia. There were the troublesome folks, the drunks or tweakers or speed freaks, alcohol and other kinds of addicts, the mentally or emotionally twisted running from the law—or sometimes pushed there by the law to keep them off the streets. But for the most part nobody bothered anyone. It was a safe place to stay or just to visit. No one knows how many people were camped there but estimates ranged up to half a hundred or even more.  

It ended in 1999. The city of Albany declared the site a park and sent police to remove the people who were camping there. They also sent bulldozers in to remove the makeshift shelters and belongings the squatters had left and, for good measure, to flatten much of the lush vegetation. There was a token attempt to find shelter for the homeless folks but they soon scattered.  

Some of their story is told in a movie, Bum’s Paradise, made at the time by film makers Thomas McCabe and Andrei Rozen with assistance from, and starring, Robert “Rabbit” Barringer, long-time denizen of the Bulb. It can be rented from Elephant Pharmacy in Berkeley for a dollar. 

The squatters are gone, but a few of them, though not allowed to camp, spend much of their time there and feel a deep connection with the place. Rabbit is one of them. I’ve walked with him up and down the many trails in the Bulb and his love for the place is contagious. Like a gracious host, he greets the visitors along the way. He knows the trees and flowers and animals and birds. Jimbow, another long-timer on the Bulb, joins us and points to the hummingbird sitting on the big tree, the red-tailed hawk soaring overhead. 

There are also the “dog people,” parents and grandparents with their kids who come to let their dogs run free. Even people who don’t have dogs come for the pleasure of watching those animals romping around with their tongues slobbering and their tails wagging happily.  

And there are the artists. The SNIFF collective that lined the path along the north shore with weird, intricate paintings on panels of driftwood seems to have disbanded and the paintings are fading. Art works are vandalized by people or by the elements and wonderful new creations appear. Fantastic creatures of scrap metal, glittering mobiles, a styrofoam arch. Osha Neumann’s monumental figure standing at the foot of the trail to the northern beach is awesome.  

Structures have been created out of broken concrete and rebar and decorated with found junk. There is the amphitheater where young people and counterculture types looking for a temporary escape from convention gather at night to party and carry on their own magical rituals. From Mad Mark’s castle you can sit and enjoy a gorgeous view of the Bay. Another amazing construction has just been completed. A group of truly motivated folks have managed to bring in a cement mixer and a huge number of bags of cement to create a smooth, elegantly curved surface for skateboarding. 

The Bulb is not the kind of park defined by park system rules. The dictionary defines a park as “a tract of land set aside for public use.” Clearly a large and diverse public uses it, people for whom it is a place to escape, a constant source of new surprises.  

It’s interesting to recall that this unique place was first discovered and settled by a bunch of homeless “bums.” And it didn’t really capture the attention of the public until the “bums” were thrown out. 

Photograph by Lydia Gans. 

Osha Neumann’s monumental figure at the foot of the trail to the northern beach. 

Blink and you will miss it. It’s fast and furious, but not necessarily when you want it to be. And if you aren’t fast enough, it’s sure to leave you standing behind in the dust.  

Call it AC Transit, MUNI or BART, public transport in the Bay Area is a necessary evil.  

Minutes and sometimes an entire hour could pass before an AC Transit bus shows up in Berkeley, but the fact is that its abundant lines and cost-saving options make it a student’s favorite way of getting around the city. 

The problems start when drivers simply refuse to stop because of overcrowding, making you wait twice the time you really should. Sometimes, they ignore the frantic pounding on the glass doors and act like they haven’t seen you at all. 

But then you realize that the powers-that-be are not all that bad. 

If you are under 18, you can purchase a 31-day youth pass for only $15 at places such as Andronico’s or Long’s Drugs.  

UC Berkeley students have access to a discounted Bear Pass from the university. The regular prices are 85 cents for students under 18, and $1.75 for adults over 18. A transfer pass costs $.25.  

The bus lines typically run every 10 or 15 minutes for the popular lines, such as the 51 (that runs from the end of University Avenue, down to Shattuck, and up to College Avenue), 18 (that runs down Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley to the top of Solano Avenue), 72 (that runs down San Pablo Avenue) and the 1 (that runs from Shattuck to Telegraph), while the other buses, like the 15 and 79 (that run down Martin Luther King Jr. Way), 9 (a complicated line that runs in many places), or 7 (that runs from Shattuck Avenue up through Claremont Avenue) sometimes run every twenty minutes or thirty minutes.  

Caveat: You should always expect buses to run slower on the weekends. Also, it’s not unusual to see two same-route buses whiz by one after the other while you are stranded without a bus for a good half-an-hour. 

AC Transit revamped its bus system this summer: routes have lengthened, frequencies have increased. However, not all bus drivers are route savvy yet. 

“Where does the 1R go?” We asked one of the drivers two weeks back. 

“I dunno,” he replied smiling. 

“Does it take you near the UC Berkeley campus?” 

“I dunno, these things are new. You gotta check with the bus driver.” 

We checked with the 1R driver and learned that the only bus which drops you off right at the campus from downtown Berkeley was the 51. 

However, there are a number of buses to choose from if you want to get downtown from the campus: the 51, 52, 1R, 7 and the Perimeter among others.  

We pray for the day when more buses will take us right up to the campus.  

One more thing, be sure to signal to the AC Transit bus driver that you want him to stop or you may risk waiting for the next bus. 

If you are really confused as to how to get around Berkeley, www.511.org will plan out your trip and will tell you exactly what the fastest, cheapest or simplest way to get your destination is. 

The next best way to get around the city is by biking. 

Berkeley is an environmental, bicycle-friendly city, complete with bicycle avenues, such as Milvia and Oxford Streets. You can purchase quality bikes (as well as fix them) at Missing Link Bicycle Shop at University and Shattuck.  

Don’t forget to check out Street Level Cycles, a community owned bike shop, near Aquatic Park (read more about it in the Aug. 7 issue online). 

If you want to go between Bay Area cities, you really don’t want to use AC Transit. 

Get on the BART (www.bart.gov). It’s almost always on time, unless there’s an earthquake, fire or mumble-mumble-we-don’t-know-what-the-problem-is situation.  

The Air BART—which shuttles you from the Coliseum BART station to the Oakland International Airport—can take a while and costs $3.  

If none of the options mentioned for Berkeley works, just walk. Walking brings out the best of Berkeley—wonderful parks, movie theaters, eclectic cuisines, scenic hills and Telegraph Avenue. 

And er, if you do make it across the bay to San Francisco and feel the need to ride the MUNI, we have just one thing to say: good luck. 

With the consolidation of AC Transit Telegraph Avenue and International Boulevard bus lines into the 1 and the 1R earlier this summer, North Oakland and Berkeley riders are discovering a secret that has been known to East Oakland riders for years. The Van Hool 60-footers are one of the most thrilling rides in California, the $1.75 entrance price a considerable bargain against what you might pay at Great America or Magic Mountain or on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, with the added bonus that while the amusement park rides are all pre-programmed and therefore can become boring after several repeats, you never know what to expect on the bus. 

We’re not talking, here, about the single-body 40s, which are a kiddy ride, with no more excitement than you’d get out of your average merry-go-round. We mean those big, articulated, two-part suckers, with the distinctive accordion wing in the center. 

It’s the two-part construction that gives the 60-foot Van Hools their special kick, and unlike a roller coaster, it’s those who ride in the back half who get the best of it. The average, one-part vehicle bounces up and down on its shocks, which is only fun if your idea of adventure is a plastic children’s bumper seat. Both parts of the 60-foot Van Hool not only give an up-and-down bounce that puts any other ride to shame (something like old-time East Bay residents might remember experiencing on the old Cypress Expressway), but the back part simultaneously exhibits the feeling that you are moving forward while you are bouncing up and down, independent of the front part, to the point where you actually believe that contrary to all physics, the two parts will collide and buckle up into pieces, throwing passengers throughout the bus and out the various windows (something like what more recent East Bay residents remember eventually happened when the old Cypress Expressway was introduced to Loma Prieta). Mind you, the back part of the 60-foot Van Hools does not crash into the front part, no more than the bungee jump will send you head-first into the ground at the end of the cord, or the roller coaster will miss its next sharp turn and send the cars hurtling out over the beach. The thrill, in all cases, is the feeling that it might. 

For those who wish to get special excitement, comparable to what you find in an amusement park fun house, the people at Van Hool have provided standing platforms in the area between the two parts. These are padded braces surrounding the metal swivel on which the two bus parts pivot. Standing with your feet on the swivel you can feel all of the motions of the bus at once as you go—forward, backward, up-and-down, and turning. Youngsters for whom standing no longer provides the proper thrill sometimes jump up to sit on the top of the padded braces, which then become something like the mechanical bull at Gilley’s and try their best to throw the kids off. 

But whether you’re lucky enough to get in the back, or can only find space in the front half, there are several special seat constructions in either half of the Van Hools that provide particular electricity. 

First and foremost of these is the “flying blind” seats, the first two seats behind the solid metal partition that divides them from the driver. Looking out the side window only tells you where you have been, not where you are going, and not even that in areas where locals have thoughtfully taken down the street signs for added uncertainty. The “flying blind” seats are particularly breathtaking when you do not know the route, and so take the entire ride with the feeling that you have already missed your stop, and are barreling miles away from your destination into parts unknown, where there be dragons and other monsters. 

Almost as desireable as the “flying blind” seats are the several backwards seats placed strategically on either side of the bus. While some sense of location can be had by looking out the side windows (see “flying blind” seats, above), the preferred method of travel in the backwards seats is to swivel your head and upper body around and lean out towards the center aisle to try to look through the front windshield, trying not to unduly jostle the strange person who is sitting in the aisle seat next to you (note: jostling strange persons in certain parts of the East Bay can sometimes be adventure above and beyond the level of excitement we would recommend, though liberal use of “excuse mes” and “my bads” can sometimes mitigate the potential damage). That directive aside, the backwards seats are good for those who wish to practice yoga or low impact aerobics while riding. 

Amusement park rides require the rider to be seated and strapped down before the ride can began, an excitement-dampening procedure that is thankfully (for thrill-seekers) non-operable throughout the AC Transit system. The 60-foot Van Hools provide a bonus, however, with several seats set up higher than floor level which require step-ups and step-downs while the bus is in motion (one step for the mid-level adventurer, two steps for those who throw caution to the winds). An added bonus is a sudden braking, accelleration, or taking off while you are still walking down the aisle trying to find your seat, but this option is only available with certain drivers, and not to be expected on all trips. 

With AC Transit being a disability-conscious agency, special attention has been given to the needs and desires of the elderly and the disabled to have a thrill ride. These are provided by the pull-down seats that face inward rather than toward the front of the back. The pull-down seats normally lie flat against the side of the bus—held in place by spring action—to leave space for wheelchair passengers, but can be manually pulled down to accommodate the elderly and ambulatory disabled who, presumably, don’t want to brave the one- or two-step hops and want their seats on the bus floor. Because these seats face inward rather than front or back, there is no way for the passengers sitting in them to brace themselves with their knees or hands on the seat in front. Sitting in the pull-down seats without being propelled out from either side can only be done by passengers firmly planting their feet on the floor and exerting pressure, downward, from the thighs. Since the elderly and the ambulatory disabled are often notoriously weak in these lower extremity areas, the anxiety that ensues makes up for the lack of these passengers’ ability to make their way to other parts of the bus. 

And, finally, any one of the Van Hool seats are designed to give that special and sudden vibration in the area of your buttocks when the bus passes over one of the East Bay’s many potholes, as if you have entered the realm of virtual reality where all padding has been stripped from the seat, both yours and the bus’s, and your buttocks have been transformed into the end of a jackhammer breaking concrete in the street. 

All in all, dollar for dollar, there is no better value for thrills and excitement in the East Bay than riding on the 60-foot Van Hools. 

The East Bay lends itself well to modes of transportation other than driving. Here is a guide to the whys and hows of biking in the East Bay, and Berkeley in particular.  

Driving in the East Bay is an activity that can range from merely aggravating to nearly futile. Among other things, there are the ever-present threats of traffic jams, lack of parking, and having to share the road with aggressive, over-caffeinated drivers, which push the act of driving ever closer to a Hobbesian state of nature: nasty, brutish, and (with luck, mercifully) short. Nowhere more so than in Berkeley are the problems with driving in the East Bay apparent. For example, unless you have a Nobel Prize ( and thereby a prime reserved space on the UC Berkeley campus) the only reliable thing about finding a parking spot is futility. And then, of course, there are the numerous one-way or dead-end streets throughout the town.  

So why not save yourself the trouble? After all, bike riding is fun! Your movement is the product of your own pedaling, not simply from stepping on the gas. Bikes can go places cars cannot (such as straight across campus), and have no fuel costs. Parking is as simple as finding an open space on a rack. Moreover, the Berkeley’s Office of Transportation website claims that “Berkeley ranks as the safest place with a population over 60,000 in California for biking and walking.”  

First, you’re required to obtain a California bicycle license to ride in Berkeley (free for UC students, $8 otherwise) However, I have never seen a rider cited for not having a license. After that, and the purchase of a good lock, you’re free to go wherever you wish.  

If you don’t yet have a bicycle, or if your bike breaks down, Berkeley has no shortage of bike shops. For example, the Missing Link Bicycle Co-op (1988 Shattuck Ave.) sells new bikes and gear. At their Annex across the street (1961 Shattuck Ave.), the co-op sells used bikes and repair services.  

Unfortunately, the paths of bike lanes through the streets of Berkeley often meander erratically. It is sometimes hard to go from point A to point B following only the designated bike lanes. You should, however, try to follow the bike lanes as much as possible, if only to avoid the stress that comes with riding in a busy street while cars whip past. 

A useful website to help a rider plan a course along bike lanes is http://bicycling.511.org. ( a government-sponsored one-stop-shop for transportation-related information; e.g. traffic and bike lanes.) The site includes a Google Maps-style zoom-able street map of the entire Bay Area annotated to show the three types of bike paths: streets that have bike paths on them; streets with little traffic, but no bike path, deemed safe for riders; and dedicated pedestrian/biking paths. The site also has printable maps with the same information.  

As should perhaps be obvious, you should be particularly aware of road-safety precautions when on a bike. The roads of Berkeley, particularly when narrow, can be dangerous for the unwary rider. 

Another useful site is BicycleSafety.com. The website’s main page—titled “How to Not Get Hit by Cars”—lists 10 different types of collisions and how to avoid them. The types of collisions range from the “Red Light of Death” to the “Wrong-Way Wallop,” and are presented along with practical advice like “Don’t ride against traffic.” Also good to keep in mind: bicyclists must obey the same road rules that govern cars.  

Once you have arrived at your destination, you must make sure to securely lock your bike to a bicycle rack. Unlocked or improperly locked bikes do get stolen, particularly when left outside overnight. Theft should not be a constant concern. Hopefully you will enjoy years of bicycling in Berkeley.

Oy, cheeses of frustration, cheeses of timing, 

chesses pregnant with children and cutting 

back on their hours. Young cheeses full of commitment, 

cheeses of cooperative effort — will you ever  

change the world? 

—Jonas Osmond, former member,  

Cheese Board Collective 

Pliny wrote about it. The moon is made of it. Legends are full of it. And the best part is, you can get it all right here in Berkeley, courtesy of the Cheese Board Collective. 

There’s a new kind of buzz going around the Collective, and it’s not the recipe for the Vacherin Mont d’Or that’s behind it.  

The Cheese Board is turning 40 this October, and the Collectivists are busy scratching their heads to find ways to celebrate it. 

“There is a lot of excitement about it,” said Cathy Goldsmith, member, who first got hooked on cheese when she tasted Buffalo Mozzarella in Florence, Italy, almost twenty years ago. 

“It’s like a milestone. We don’t know what we want to do about it but lots of ideas were thrown out. Honestly, we are a bit stymied by what we should do. I was thinking of handing everyone the joker card on Saturday but that would drive everyone crazy.” 

Instead of taking a number while you wait for service, customers at this quaint North Shattuck cheese shop grab a playing card from a hook. 

You know it’s your turn to taste the delicacies behind the counter when the cheese clerk calls out ‘who’s got the queen of hearts?”  

You’re in luck if you draw the joker, because it’s wild. 

“It’s like playing a game,” Goldsmith said, wiping some dough off her arms. “People seem to like it and we like it too. Our 3,400 different kinds of cheeses might seem a bit intimidating at first, but we try to give everybody a taste of everything. The thing about cheese is that it’s just salt, water and rennet, but then it comes out in so many more ways. It takes you back to a different place.” 

Goldsmith attributes the success of the business to its old world charm 

“It feels like the village marketplace,” she said smiling. “People want to connect with other people. You can buy your bread and cheese here, fish there, vegetables down the block and support your community. I hope it continues to be this way. It’s what makes Berkeley Berkeley.” 

10 a.m. on a Friday morning is chaos incarnate within the four walls of the cheese shop.  

Babies cry in their strollers while moms shop for Provolone olive bread. Couples stroll around lazily tasting the deep dark chocolate loaves. The Cheeseboard is the the center of the universe for its customers.  

Peace reigns inside its bowels however, as the collectivists work their magic to rustle up English muffins, cherry scones and baguette pieces. 

“It just feels so fresh,” said Tara Rayder Baker, breaking off a piece of the cherry scone and giving it to her son Jake. 

“We just moved here and I’ve been coming here every week since then. It’s a Berkeley institution, there’s no doubt about that.” 

What is now a full-fledged bakery, cheese shop and pizzeria first opened its doors in 1967 as a small specialty store in a tiny, narrow storefront tucked into a converted alleyway on Vine Street.  

Owners Elizabeth and Sahag Avedisian wanted to bring a little bit of Europe to Berkeley and in doing so brought the whole world to their store. 

Guided by a strong belief in the equal distribution of wealth and inspired by their travels to an Israeli kibbutz, the Avedisians sold their shop at a loss to their employees. 

The Cheese Board has remained worker-owned and-operated since 1971, functioning as a dynamic fluid single democracy. 

“Who’s the boss?” is a question that’s tossed around often by curious visitors who are new to the idea of a co-op. 

“No one,” yells out Steve Manning, who works next door at the pizzeria. “I look like the boss but that’s just because I have a gray beard. I also like teasing all my co-workers mercilessly and endlessly. It helps take off the pressure a bit.” 

The line outside the pizzeria is endless. It’s lunchtime and there are mouths to feed, pies to sell and money to be made. 

“But the fact remains that it is a collective,” Manning who worked as an environmental affairs officer for the Discover Channel store said.  

“We aren’t getting rich but we all make a decent wage together. There’s a benefit in knowing that the money is not going to some fat cat in a corporation. We can put more money into our ingredients and that’s why our customers stand in line.” 

Manning added that one individual could stop anything at The Cheese Board. 

“We try not to come to a strict majority,” he said. “We try to come to a consensus.” 

Goldsmith quips in, “We are all the big boss. We are all very bossy.” 

Nine hundred whole pies have seen the light of day since 7 a.m. on Friday morning and more will be made till the store closes at 10 p.m. The hours are funky but no one really cares. 

“We don’t know what we are making until the very last minute,” said Manning, dividing the dough into batches and letting it rise. 

“It’s bell peppers, onions, cilantro, olives, sharp feta cheese and herbs today but it will be four cheese pizza Tuesday. We try to find out what’s fresh and in-season in the local produce market. We are not real strict about organic but if we can and the price isn’t too much we try to get it.” 

A quasi-separate entity from the cheese store and bakery, the pizzeria recently doubled its floor space after it took over a former hardware store in the building.  

Customers can now enjoy their sourdough crusts in the store itself, while live jazz plays in the background and the smell of roasted garlic turns the spot into a little piece of heaven. 

“Our pizzas are variations on a theme,” said Artemio Maldonado or “the mastermind”, who has worked at the collective for a decade. 

“Most of our pies are built by layering the ingredients in the following order: Mozzarella, onions, other vegetables, more Mozzarella, a different variety of cheese, and, after baking, the application of a flavored olive oil and an herb garnish.” 

It’s past 2 p.m. but there’s no sign of the line dwindling. Janet Newman, a Berkeley resident has been waiting for ten minutes. 

“It’s that good,” she said smiling. “Sometimes if you are lucky the line moves fast enough. But I really don’t care. The Cheeseboard will always be a special trip for me.” 

Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee. 

The Cheese Board, at 1512 Shattuck Ave., offers a wide selection of breads and cheeses.

If you’ve driven around California, you’ll no doubt have seen the ubiquitous signs that grace the entrance to various cities, directing you to the historic district or what’s left of it. Berkeley has no such sign—probably because it’s preserved more of its historic heritage than most cities, and because our landmarks aren’t confined to one area but can be found all over town. 

At the heart of Berkeley is the University of California campus, whose classic Beaux Arts core was designed by John Galen Howard between 1902 and 1924. The campus plan was created as a result of the Phoebe Apperson Hearst International Architectural Competition of 1898–99. 

Although Howard did not win the competition, he was appointed Supervising Architect and determined the look of the campus, designing two dozen structures, including its most famous sites: Sather Tower (the Campanile), Sather Gate, Doe Library, Hearst Greek Theatre, California Memorial Stadium, Wheeler Hall, California Hall, and Hearst Memorial Mining Building. Many of the buildings are clad in granite (or stucco when the budget was tight) and surmounted by red tile roofs; a few are Brown Shingles in the Arts & Crafts style. 

As an ensemble, they constitute California Historic Landmark No. 946 and are also individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Just south of the U.C. campus, at 2315 Durant Ave., stands the Berkeley City Club, designed in 1929 by Julia Morgan. Like Morgan’s Hearst Castle, the six-story clubhouse combines Moorish and Gothic elements that earned it the moniker “The Little Castle.” Originally the Berkeley Women’s City Club, it was entirely financed by subscriptions from 4,000 women.  

The fabulous interiors include an indoor swimming pool, a ballroom, various reception halls, dining rooms, courtyards, and a terrace. California Historic Landmark No. 908, the building is now run as a hotel, and the restaurant is open to the public. 

A few blocks to the west, Downtown Berkeley boasts an eclectic mix of architectural styles from different periods. Occupying an entire block of Shattuck Avenue between Kittredge St. and Allston Way is the venerable Shattuck Hotel, designed in the Mission style by Benjamin G. McDougall and inaugurated in 1910.  

The hotel was built on the former estate of Francis K. Shattuck, one of Berkeley’s founders. Next door, also on former Shattuck land, is the Berkeley Public Library, a fine example of Zigzag Moderne designed by James W. Plachek in 1930.  

Shattuck Hotel (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2007) 

Just across Shattuck Ave. from the library you can delight in one of the Bay Area’s best Storybook-style structures, the enchanting Tupper & Reed Building (William Raymond Yelland, 1925), originally a music store and now a restaurant. On the corner of Shattuck and Addison St. stands the former S. H. Kress & Co. five-and-dime store. Built in 1933, this striking Art Deco edifice now serves as the gatepost to the Arts District, housing a bookstore, Berkeley’s famous Jazz School, and the acclaimed Aurora Theatre Company. 

Berkeley’s earliest founding community was Ocean View, on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The former town, now West Berkeley, is home to a large collection of 19th-century architecture. Strolling along the 800 block of Delaware Street with its boardwalks, water towers, picket fences, and beautifully restored Victorians, the visitor can taste the rural character that once characterized this neighborhood. At 834 Delaware St., you’ll see the charming yellow building that served as Captain Bowen’s Inn since 1854. Preserved Italianate and Queen Anne houses, as well as 19th-century workmen’s cottages are scattered on surrounding streets, just steps away from the elegant shops and restaurants of Fourth Street. 

About a mile north of the U.C. campus, the Berkeley Municipal Rose Garden is a favorite venue for June weddings, tennis games, picnics, hiking, or daydreaming. A Depression-era Civil Works Progress Project, the garden was opened in September 1937. Arranged in an amphitheater, wide stone terraces planted with fragrant rose bushes face west toward the Golden Gate. A semicircular redwood pergola draped with climbing roses crowns the terraces. Boasting 3,000 rose bushes and 250 varieties of roses, the garden is considered by many to be the finest rose garden in Northern California. A block to the south on Euclid Avenue, the famous Rose Walk, laid out by Bernard Maybeck and lined with cottages by Henry H. Gutterson, is worth a look as well. 

The Berkeley Municipal Rose Garden. Photograph by Daniella Thompson.

Welcome to the East Bay. You’re just in time for some of the area’s best weather – warm days, long shadows and gentle breezes. They make up the perfect combination to get outdoors, explore and develop a relationship with nature. 

The East Bay Regional Park District is an amazing resource, one that offers over 97,000-acres encompassing 65 regional parks, recreation areas, wilderness, shorelines and preserves and 1150-miles of hiking trails. Within is habitat for a wealth of wildlife, 235 family campsites and 2,082 picnic tables. Add to that, 11 freshwater lakes for water sports and nine interpretive centers.  

Several parks are close enough for a morning or afternoon escape, less than 30 minutes from Berkeley. Hike the classic landscape of the East Bay hills, search out evidence of our volcanic past and a verdant canyon unchanged for millions of years, stroll north on coastal prairie and enjoy San Francisco vistas along with man’s best friend. All you need is time to enjoy our great outdoors and, in some cases, the cost of the parking fee. 

Briones Regional Park is a secret wilderness nestled in the hills north of Lafayette, a discovery you’ll want to repeat. Cows can often be seen grazing the rolling hillsides in this 6,000-acre spread of oak forests, shaded canyons, hidden lagoons and impressive views, once part of Rancho San Felipe. 

A number of hikes originate from the Bear Creek Staging Area and there are also well-shaded picnic facilities there. One loop, the Abrigo Valley-Mott Peak-Crest-Old Briones Road, takes you past a diversity of environments, and is a good introduction to the park. You’ll walk through a cool canyon beneath mature bays and oaks, past meadows and tuck-and-roll hillsides of native grasses, up a steep climb to Mott Peak where vistas spread out for miles and to lagoons ringed with reeds. 

Briones’ summer climate is hot, so an early morning start will keep you cool as well as increase your chances of viewing resident wildlife. 

Bear Creek Staging Area: on Bear Creek Road, off of San Pablo Dam Road. Parking fee is $5/car, $2/dog. 

Closer to home, in the East Bay Hills, are two parks less than 1 mile apart, Sibley Volcanic and Huckleberry Botanic, connected by Skyline Trail. 

Once home to volcanoes, Sibley is one of the Park District’s original properties, dedicated in 1936. The open-pavilion Visitor Center is a good place for an introduction to the park’s diverse plant communities and its tumultuous past, the survival of a land in transition. Here you can also pick up the self-guided tour of Round Top loop where numbered signposts match brochure descriptions. 

On this loop you’ll see the interior of Round Top volcano and layers of tuff-breccias at a former quarry pit. Other signposts point out redbeds, red streaks and layers of oxidized iron and good fossil sources, and massive sandstone blocks left over from the Age of Dinosaurs. 

Though rich in geologic history, Sibley’s abundant flora keeps plant-lovers happy. Through grassland, brushland, mixed broadleaf woodland and conifer forest, coast live oak, bay laurel, madrone, buckeye, coyote bush and wild current thrive and provide habitat for a variety of wildlife. 

Sibley Volcanic: 6800 Skyline Blvd, Oakland. No parking fee, dogs allowed.  

At Huckleberry the collection of California natives, on 240-acres of ocean floor strata laid down 12 million years ago, are reminders of a cooler, moister climate. This is a landscape that can’t be seen anywhere else in the East Bay. A year-round display of blooming plants among coast huckleberry, ceanothus, chinquapin, bay forests and chaparral thickets makes every season a lure.  

Huckleberry Path, a 1.7-mile loop along a self-guided nature trail, traverses a wide range of landscapes as it leads you up and down the canyon along steep undulations. The nature trail brochure, available at the trailhead, points out unique vegetation while providing lessons on ecological succession and competition for resources. Though nearby, the experience will take you far away. 

Huckleberry Botanic: on Skyline Blvd. between Broadway Terrace and Snake Road, Oakland, no parking fee and no dogs allowed. 

Point Pinole Regional Shoreline offers the best of all outdoor worlds – sparkling bay views and accessible shoreline, gently undulant meadows and lush marshes, rich birdlife, eucalyptus groves and shaded picnic grounds. Walking along the 12 miles of mostly flat trails, it’s hard to imagine the explosive past of this quiet retreat. 

Between 1880 and 1960 four explosive companies manufactured over two billion pounds of dynamite here. Forty years later, Giant Powder Co. created its own town. Today, only their footsteps remain in oddly shaped foundations, sunken bunkers, raised earth berms, wood pilings and partially visible railroad ties. 

The Bay View Trail is a gentle loop taking you through most of the park’s habitats with strategically placed benches and beach access trails along the way. A public fishing pier extends 200 feet over the bay and is often crowded with anglers hoping for a catch of sturgeon or perch. 

Point Pinole: 5551 Giant Highway, Richmond. Parking fee is $5/vehicle, $2/dog.  

When your four-legged best friend wants an outing, the place to go is Point Isabel Regional Shoreline, the largest public off-leash park in the U.S. Here you can ogle views of the Golden Gate Bridge and bird watch while Fido makes friends.  

Though small at 21 acres, the 1.7-mile trail takes you along the waterfront and past grassy fields. There are lots of mud-flat and bay- access points for dogs that enjoy wallowing and swimming. It’s a great place to people and dog-watch and enjoy brisk breezes off the water. 

The Sit & Stay Café, a rewarding treat for masters, and Mudpuppy Tub & Scrub, a treat for both of you, are within the park grounds. 

Point Isabel: at the west end of Central Ave, Richmond. No parking or dog fees. 

The East Bay Regional Parks District has an excellent website where you can get specific directions to each park, hours of operation and a list of scheduled activities, including naturalist-lead hikes. Go to www.ebparks.org/parks or call 562-PARK.

We’re never too far from nature here in the East Bay. Sometimes nature builds a nest in the vine outside your window, gets in through the cat door, eats your prize roses, or settles into the crawlspace under your house. Venture a little farther away from home and you can expect less problematic encounters—lots of options for viewing spring wildflowers, watching migrant and resident birds, appreciating butterflies, or meeting newts, horned lizards, and gopher snakes. 

Two web sites are useful: for birders, the California Birding Lists Digest (www.sialia.com) compiles sightings from regional online mailing lists, including East Bay Birders. Wildflower aficionados should check Carol Leigh’s Wildflower Hotsheet (www.calphoto.com/wflower) for statewide coverage. 

For more about the East Bay Regional Parks listed below, including trail maps, visit www.ebparks.org/parks or read Marta Yamamoto’s recommendations here in the Planet. 

Grizzly Island Wildlife Area: OK, this is more North than East Bay, but it’s the closest site for big-game watching. The resident tule elk are best observed in late winter, or during the late-September gap between elk and waterfowl hunting seasons. Also good for wintering ducks, geese, swans, year-round raptors and river otters. More information: www.dfg.ca.gov/lands/wa/region3/grizzlyisland. 

Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge: The only federal wildlife refuge created for endangered plants (the Antioch Dunes evening primrose and Contra Costa wallflower) and insects (Lange’s metalmark butterfly). Join free docent-led tours of this remnant dune habitat on the second Saturday of every month; it’s otherwise closed to the public. The flowers bloom in April and May; the metalmarks fly in late summer. Information: www.fws.gov/ refuges/profiles/index.cfm?id=11646. 

Mount Diablo State Park: Many trails, many options, but Mitchell Canyon Trail on the north side remains a personal favorite. Try it in spring for wildflowers (including the Mount Diablo globe lily, which grows only here) and returning migrant songbirds, or in early fall for wandering lovesick tarantulas. We’ve run into everything from bramble hairstreaks to kingsnakes to coyotes in Mitchell Canyon. In late spring, the Mary Bowerman Trail around the summit has flowering bitterroot, swarms of butterflies, and some very personable whiptail and alligator lizards. Information: www.mdia.org. 

San Francisco Bay Trail: Part of the new Eastshore State Park, stretching from Richmond to Emeryville, this trail offers access to open water and tidal marsh habitats. This summer a party of black skimmers graced Meeker Slough in Richmond. California clapper rails are possible. Information: www.ebparks.org/parks/eastshore. 

Berkeley waterfront: Check the restored seasonal wetlands north of University Avenue for wintering ducks and geese, and the shoreline riprap at Cesar Chavez Park for burrowing owls. Peregrine falcons and other raptors hunt here. Nearby, Berkeley Aquatic Park hosts hooded mergansers, redheads, and the occasional tufted duck, a regular stray from Asia. 

Tilden Regional Park: The Packrat Trail from the Nature Center to Jewel Lake is great for spring and fall migrant birds. At the lake you can meet California’s only native water turtle, the western pond turtle. Visit the Wildcat Gorge Trail in spring for coralroot orchids and singing Swainson’s thrushes. 

Briones Regional Park: Grand Central Station for amorous newts in winter. The Sindicich and Maricich Lagoons are recommended. Good birds too, especially along the trail to the archery range. This is the only place I’ve ever seen the endangered Alameda whipsnake. 

Sibley Regional Park: Home to a nesting pair of golden eagles, and an excellent place to meet chaparral birds like the California thrasher and lazuli bunting. Fascinating geology as well—this was an active volcanic site some 10 million years ago. 

Redwood Regional Park: One of the few East Bay locations for the impressive and elusive pileated woodpecker. Sightings are usually posted at sialia.com. 

Arrowhead Marsh, Martin Luther King Shoreline Regional Park: Excellent for rail-watching during winter high tides, Arrowhead has the East Bay’s highest concentration of endangered California clapper rails. Waterfowl, shorebirds, and raptors frequent the established marsh and the nearby restoration project, and there’s a chance burrowing owls may still be present. Caution: last parking lot may be partially flooded at high tide. 

Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge: Water birds—gulls, terns, egrets, skimmers, phalaropes—thrive in the refuge’s converted salt ponds. If you spot a flamingo, don’t be alarmed; escapes show up here from time to time. Information: www.fws.gov/desfbay. 

Sunol Regional Wilderness: Out of the way, but worth it. The hike to Little Yosemite has white fairy-lanterns and mariposa lilies in spring, California fuchsia in fall. Oak-savanna and chaparral birds abound. On warm days, keep an eye out for rattlesnakes. 

Mines Road: Not a park or refuge, but a good driving tour; most of the land along this road south of Livermore is privately owned. In a good year, Mines Road (and Del Puerto Canyon Road, which continues into Stanislaus County to I-5) can have outstanding wildflower displays. Both roads are good for locally hard-to-find birds: phainopepla, Lawrence’s goldfinch, Lewis’s woodpecker, Costa’s hummingbird, roadrunner.  

Sometimes you feel like a walk in the woods, sometimes you feel like a stroll near the coast. Whatever your pleasure, Tilden Regional Park and the Berkeley Marina form the eastern and western boundaries of the city of Berkeley. Each offers a broad range of outdoor attractions to fill an hour, an afternoon or an entire day. 

Tilden Park is an ideal playground—2,077-acres preserved for natural beauty and recreation. It’s been an integral part of Berkeley life since it opened to the public in 1936.  

On offer are miles of trails for hiking and biking, a fresh water lake for swimming and fishing, picnic sites galore for groups large and small, a Nature Area and Little Farm, a Botanic Garden rich with California natives, and for the child in all of us, a merry-go-round and steam train. More than enough fun for multiple visits. 

The Tilden Nature Area is ideal for getting acquainted with the park. Walk through the model exhibit of Wildcat Creek Watershed inside the Environmental Education Center to learn how the movement of water carved and shaped the geologic features, plants and animals that make up this park. Then head outside and visit the animals at the Little Farm, build in the 1950s by a Berkeley High School Woodshop class. 

Seven trails wind through the 70-acre Nature Study Area. Don’t miss the Jewel Lake Trail loop along the never-ending bridge, built through a marshy, lush green jungle of trees and resident wildlife to a small lake where ducks, turtles and a resident Great Blue Heron make their home. Park maps and the posted schedule of ranger-led activities will help you plan for future events. 

Lake Anza is a special place in any season. When warm weather calls, enjoy its sandy beach and crisp water surrounded by a forest of conifers and eucalyptus. Visit in the early morning or when mist drips from the leaves. Explore the entire lake and its creek by walking the perimeter trail, along or with a water-loving canine friend. 

Well-marked hiking trails lead you through a variety of habitats: Big Springs Canyon’s colorful wildflower display, the lost waterfall of Laurel Canyon, riparian forests of alder and bay, cool and alive with the sound of water over creek cobbles. 

The ten acres of the Botanic Garden are divided into ten floral areas, representing California’s 160,000 square miles. Within the garden’s boundaries is the world’s most complete collection of California native trees, shrubs and flowers, landscaped for exploring, study and relaxation. Pick up a map of the garden and a list of scheduled events at the Visitor Center. 

Picnic areas are abundant throughout the park, many available for reservation. Big Leaf, Meadows, Buckeye, Lake View—all equipped with tables, grills and water. 

Leave enough time to celebrate the kid in all of us. At the Herschel-Spillman antique merry-go-round wonderful, hand carved and painted carousel animals and the music of the calliope will have you smiling. On the scaled-down Steam Train you can sit inside boxcars or out in the elements for a scenic ridge ride, complete with appropriately attired engineer, billows of steam and a piercing whistle. 

Down the hill and five miles across town is the Berkeley Marina, on the shores of San Francisco Bay. Here resources abound for a variety of interests and levels of activity. Enjoy walking, cycling, boating, fishing and bird watching or just sitting and soaking up the scenery. 

Wide, paved paths circumnavigate the entire marina, making a walk or bike ride ideal methods to check out the marina’s hot spots. Follow them past landscaped grounds of lawns studded with pines; the 52-acre marina where boats of all sizes with bright marine-blue sail coverings fill 975 berths; all the way to a kite-flying and dog-romping paradise. 

At Shorebird Park, the sound of hammering and the zing of a zip-line signal Adventure Playground, popular with both children and their parents. Here kids can build using recycled materials, nails and paint to construct forts, boats or towers, letting imaginations soar and developing skills not often called upon. 

At the Nature Center, the goals are to put out the word about the ecology of the bay, watershed and estuary, using salt-water aquariums, touch-tables and outdoor activities. Children can visit with their schools or sign up for afternoon classes. 

The Straw Bale building is an attraction in itself, drawing in everyone interested in sustainable architecture. This handsome building of gray stucco, trimmed in teal, is a showcase for recycled and salvaged materials. Interpretive panels describe the building process and a brochures list the products used and their suppliers. 

Reaching out 3000-feet into the bay is the Berkeley Pier. At the entrance, try a tasty dog or link from Eat and Run, then take a photo of Frederick Fierstein’s Guardian, a mysterious sculpture that appeared in 1985. Walk out and join hopeful anglers dropping lines for perch or traps for crab. Enjoy views of Alcatraz and Marin County across the bay. 

If you’re interested in with sailing or windsurfing, visit the Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit cooperative. It’s been around for 60-years, offering lessons, equipment rentals, cruises and races. Free rides are offered at open houses twice a month. 

The Marina Deli stocks more than hot dogs, chips and soda. Fishing lures, line, weights and live bait are ready for purchase. Home to the Berkeley Marine Sport Center, you can sign up here to cruise the bay or out to the Farallon Islands, fishing for salmon, cod and tuna. 

Cesar Chavez Park attracts kite-flyers and dog-walkers, as well as everyone else who’s ready for some outdoor fun. Once landfill, 96-acres now offer multi-use turf, wetland and shoreline areas. Fido can run off-leash in the 17-acre center section or join you on-leash along the 1.25-mile Dorothy Stegman perimeter trail past picnic areas and an undeveloped wildlife sanctuary frequented by bird watchers.  

Tilden Regional Park: entrances off Wildcat Canyon Road and Grizzly Peak Blvd., 510-843-2137, www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden. No entrance fee for the park. Fees required for swimming at Lake Anza, the merry-go-round and steam train. Picnic Reservations:1-888-EBPARKS. 

Berkeley Marina: 201 University Ave., 981-6740, www.cityofberkeley.info/marina. No entrance or parking fees.  

Photograph by Marta Yamamoto. 

Everyone is anxious to see Peaches’ litter of 11 piglets at Tilden Park’s Little Farm.

After the ritual stop at the Lawrence Hall of Science parking lot for the view of the bay, you might want to show your parents around your new home.  

If you’re a Goth and want to give them a dose, you know where to find others of your kind. But don’t miss The Bone Room for atmospherics and jewelry (1569 Solano Ave., 526-5252), or the East Bay Vivarium for lovely snakes, lizards, and arachnids (1827-C Fifth St., 841-1400). 

Mom’s a gardener? Take her to Mrs. Dalloway’s, a unique independent bookshop in the Elmwood neighborhood (2904 College Ave., 704-8222). Dedicated to the literary and garden arts, the store has a thoughtful selection of books and periodicals, live plants and containers.  

If it’s the first Sunday of the month and the weather’s decent, give them a megadose of yesterday and the surreal for a mere $5 each at the Alameda Antiques Fair on the former Naval Air Station (follow Pacific Avenue; 522-7500). There’s no shade, but there is chow, and you can listen to the folks exclaiming, “My mother has a pair of those!” or, “I used to have that game!” 

If they brought the dog along, they’ll all love the scene at Berkeley’s Cesar Chavez Park or Richmond’s Point Isabel Regional Shoreline, where they can mingle with Catahoula hounds, komondors, and other canine curiosities. At Point Isabel, dogs that have found a splash in the Bay irresistable can be hosed off at Mudpuppy’s Tub & Scrub. 

For out-of-staters, the Oakland Museum of California provides a painless introduction to the state’s ecology, history, and art (100 Oak St., 238-2200). Check out the 1940s kitchen and the beat and hippie exhibits. 

Food and drink? There’s a wealth of options. For cocktails by the bay, try Hs Lordships at the Berkeley Marina (199 Seawall Drive, 843-2733). Unlike many popular bars, you can actually have a conversation there. And for Hong Kong-style dim sum with a view, you can’t beat Emeryville’s East Ocean (3199 Powell St., 655-3388). For tiki and pupu aficionados, Emeryville also has the legendary Trader Vic’s (9 Anchor Drive, 653-4300). 

There’s a tiki bar run by actual Hawai’ians down at the bottom of University Avenue: Templebar, (984 University, 524-6403 messages and reservations; 548-9888 during business hours: Wednesday through Saturday, 5:30 p.m. 'till Last Call).  

Eating your way down Solano Avenue can be a rewarding experience. Start with Ajanta (1888 Solano, 526-4373) for some of the Bay Area’s best Indian food; other choices include Japanese, Thai, Nepalese, several kinds of Chinese and Mediterranean. On University Avenue, Lagosia offers Nigerian cuisine in a stylish setting (1725 University, 540-8833), and the same stretch of a few blocks also offers Indonesian, Salvadoran, Indian, Thai, and more. 

Fourth Street, the Anti-Telegraph Avenue, has splendid Mexican food, mostly small plates, at Tacubaya (525-5160) and breakfast fare at Bette’s Oceanview Diner (972-6879). 

Everyone knows about North Shattuck’s Gourmet Ghetto, but downtown Shattuck Avenue offers microbrews at Jupiter (2181 Shattuck, 843-8277) and rustic French at La Note (2377 Shattuck, 843-1535). College Avenue has memorable Italian food atTrattoria La Siciliana (2993 College, 704-1474). 

If your parents are more the meat-and-potatoes or fish-and-fries type, The Dead Fish is worth the drive to Crockett: crab and prime rib, white-tablecloth nautical decor, and a view of the Carquinez Straits (20050 San Pablo Ave., 787-3323). 

The same sorts will like Fatapple’s classic burgers and pies (1346 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, 526-2260), and for breakfast, lunch, and weekend brunch, don’t miss the scones, cornmeal pancakes, and oyster po’-boys at Meal Ticket (1235 San Pablo Ave., Albany, 526-6325). 

Just over the Oakland border but technically in Emeryville, try Lois the Pie Queen (851 60th St. just off MLK, 658-1516) for downhome cooking; Lois has passed on, but her son keeps the culinary tradition going.  

Diversity is not just a lofty abstraction: it tastes great, and you can dance to it. With the exception of the wet months, the East Bay calendar is full of street fairs, music festivals, parades, and other events where you can hear everything from mariachi to taiko and sample endless variations on grilled-stuff-on-a-stick. 

A sampling follows, and my apologies to anyone whose favorite event I’ve inadvertently omitted; write to the Planet if you have suggestions. Once again I tried really hard to find a local observance of Loy Krathong, the Thai celebration where you apologize to the spirit of the waters, but no luck. 

For updates, see www.sfgate.com/traveler/events/fairsfestivals.shtml. 

Oakland Chinatown StreetFest, Aug. 25-26: The 20th year for this pan-Asian event, bigger than anything in San Francisco; martial arts demonstrations, taiko drumming, Polynesian dancers, music from Chinese classical to rap, food. www.oaklandchinatownstreetfest.com. 

Art and Soul Festival, Sept. 1-3: A multi-block Labor Day weekend party in downtown Oakland. Lucinda Williams headlines.www.artandsouloakland.com 

Scottish Gathering and Games, Sept. 1-2: Watch out for the caber! Food (haggis at your own risk), music, dancing, sheep dog trials, falconry exhibits. Alameda County Fairgrounds, Pleasanton. www.caledonian.org/games/gamesmain.html 

How Berkeley Can You Be? Parade and Festival, Sept. 30: Is Berkeleyan an ethnic group? A philosophy? A cult? You decide. The parade up University Avenue ends at Martin Luther King Park with more entertainment (South African reggae, Latin rock, Afro-Fusion balafon). http://www.howberkeleycanyoube.com/ 

Ardenwood Cajun/Zydeco Festival, Sept. 22: Local and Louisiana talent perform at Fremont’s historic Ardenwood Farm. Zydeco ace Geno Delafosse heads the bill. There’ll be gumbo and crawfish, of course. www.ebparks.org/activities/events#sep. 

Indigenous Peoples Day, Oct. 6: Pow-wow dancing and drumming, traditional and modern arts and crafts, frybread, bison burgers. Martin Luther King Park, Berkeley. www.red-coral.net/Pow.html 

Ukulele Festival of Northern California, April 2008: All ukuleles, all day, with occasional hula. Kalua pig and other island treats available. Hayward Adult School, 22100 Princeton St., Hayward. (415) 281-0221, http://www.pica-org.org/ukulele. 

Oakland Cinco de Mayo Festival, May 2008: Celebrate the end of one of Napoleon III’s really bad ideas, when Mexico defeated French imperial troops in the battle of Puebla. International Boulevard between 34th and 41st avenues. 535-0389, www.oaklandcincodemayo.com. Other Cinco de Mayo events in Berkeley and elsewhere. 

Festival of Greece, May 2008: Souvlaki, bouzouki, maybe ouzo in the Oakland Hills; dancing with and without tables. Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, 4700 Lincoln Ave., Oakland. 531-3400, www.oaklandgreekfestival.com. 

Himalayan Fair, May 2008: Safer than Katmandu—music, dancing, arts, and crafts from the Roof of the World, plus curries and handmade momos. Live Oak Park, Berkeley.  

869-3995, www.himalayanfair.net. 

Juneteenth, June 2008: Commemorating the day that word of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas, this celebration of African American heritage also features music, food, and crafts from Africa and the Caribbean. Adeline Street, Berkeley. 655-8008. 

Berkeley International Food Festival, June 2008: Celebrating West Berkeley’s cornucopia of ethnic foods: kahlua pig, pupusas, Pakistani kebabs, Indian ice cream, and more. www.berkeleyinternationalfoodfestival.com. 

Festival of India, August 2008: Fremont’s Indian community hosts a two-day event with Bollywood celebrities and a dance competition. www.fiaonline.org.

Sooner or later, well-used cooking knives and sewing scissors get dull. I use a steel to keep my knives sharp, but eventually they need a professional to do the job. At that point, I call California Cutlery’s Mobile Sharpening Service. Based in Richmond, they come to your house or business, take your implements at the door, sharpen them in their van and bring them right back to you. 

The first knife is free. After that, it’s $5 for a kitchen knife of any length ($8 for serrated blades), $10 per food processor blade ($15 serrated), $5 for scissors and shears. California Cutlery will also sharpen pizza wheels, garden pruners, screw drivers and other tools. For large orders and repair services, they will pick up and deliver your tools for free in Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Pinole, Richmond and San Pablo.  

Using onsite service is safer and more convenient than carrying around big blades (even when they’re dull). For information or an appointment, call 525-6700. Website address: www.californiacutlery.com. 

I owe Herb Caen, the dearly loved and sorely missed San Francisco columnist, a debt of gratitude for having totally changed my life. To put it more precisely, it was his book published back in 1949, Baghdad-By-The-Bay that turned my life around, and all for the better. 

How could this slim book, a compilation of San Francisco Chronicle articles, have had such an impact on my life? Perhaps this will explain it. Most of my early years were spent in South Bend, Indiana, a nice little town with pretty homes, big green lawns, close to Notre Dame University. In fairness I have to say South Bend had much to offer—it, uh, it—(give me time; I’ll think of something.) I should add, the weather was foul; below zero in the winter, near 100 in the summer. 

It was on one of those miserable, muggy days that I dropped into the Public Library, the only building in town with air conditioning. While the New Fiction shelf was ordinarily my first stop, that day I headed straight for the Travel Section. One book instantly caught my eye, Baghdad- By-The-Bay. I knew nothing of the author, Herb Caen. Possibly the name Baghdad struck my fancy. (I should point out that this book was written long before the United States left that formerly beautiful city in ruins.) In any event, I plopped down in a comfortable arm chair and started reading. The afternoon passed and I read on, enchanted with the book, drinking in vivid descriptions of the many wonders of Caen’s adored city. I was still reading when it was time for the library to close. Checking out the book, I continued reading as I walked home in the blazing sunshine. As the hot summer wore on, again seeking shelter in the cool public library, I read and re-read the book until I had practically memorized it. Written several decades ago, much of it was dated and irrelevant, especially well-known figures who had since passed on —Pierre Monteaux, Harry Bridges and William Saroyan, to name just a few. But the city itself had not changed that much; I came to know all the colorful neighborhoods and the people living there (i.e., the Italians in North Beach, the Chinese in Waverly Place). I grew familiar with the more elegant areas—St. Francis Wood, Pacific Heights, Nob Hill, and Sea Cliff “where the homes have room to puff out their chests in the satisfaction of success.” Likewise, “those two distinguished neighbors, the Mark Hopkins and the Fairmont, staring blankly at each other across California Street.” I soon became acquainted with other, less aristocratic parts of the city—the Mission District, Visitacion Valley, the Castro, Golden Gate Park and Powell Street, where I could almost hear the clang of Cable Cars and imagine myself hanging on for dear life with all other happy tourists.  

Given Caen’s vivid passages in the book, I was not only becoming familiar with the geography of San Francisco, but also the flavor and smells—garlic hanging in the windows in North Beach, the tantalizing odors along Fisherman’s Wharf, and seeing “Newly formed whitish fog filtering through the harp strings of Golden Gate Bridge.”  

Languishing as I was all that summer in Indiana’s soaring temperatures, it was the thought of fog creeping in off the Bay that lured me to San Francisco. Tuning in for the weather report one evening in August when the announcer predicted temperatures would hit the century mark with no relief in sight, I shouted, “This is it! San Francisco, here I come! And I came. With two suitcases, a thousand dollars, Herb Caen’s book tucked under one arm, and not the slightest idea where I’d lay my head that first night.  

It soon became evident that I could not afford even a modest studio apartment in S.F. As fate would have it, I ran across a house-sitting advertisement in a local paper and found myself ensconced in a lovely home in Pacific Heights. What a glorious six weeks that was! I walked and walked and walked all over town -- across Golden Gate Bridge, up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, through Golden Gate Park, along Fisherman’s Wharf, the Marina and China Town. But, alas, all good things come to an end. Reality set in and I faced the cruel fact that I needed to find a job and an apartment I could afford. It was suggested I get myself over to Berkeley and apply for work at the University of California. (This, of course, was not suggested in Herb’s book.) But it turned out to be another fortuitous move. 

Berkeley was not too dissimilar to San Francisco, boasting beautiful old homes (Maybeck and Julia Morgan), steep hills. stunning bay views, and a world-famous University, where I immediately landed a job in the Law School. My new sixth floor apartment in the South Campus area afforded a view of the Campanile, International House and the stately old Claremont Hotel. And, more important, I could see the fog roll in over the East Bay hills.  

So, Herb, dear old friend, I thank you once again for directing me to your glorious Baghdad-By-The-Bay and, subsequently, to my new exciting life in Berkeley. Incidentally, I arrived there just in time for the Free Speech Movement turmoil and the Viet Nam protests. Was even tear gassed when Ronnie sent in the National Guard. I look forward to thanking you in person some day, Herb—though not too soon. 

You should never lack good food in Berkeley. Although good food is often expensive (commensurate with the price of high-quality ingredients), it doesn’t have to be. Here is a list of cheap Berkeley restaurants that serve great food. 

Brazil Fresh Squeeze Café 

While it might be easy to overlook the Brazil Café, it would behoove you not to. Housed in an unpretentious little shack below campus with only outdoor seating, the Brazil Café has amazingly good food. If you are willing to spend a dollar or two more than the cheapest Berkeley restaurants (still below $10), then you should look no further than the Brazil Café. 

The tri-tip steak sandwich on special bread, covered with creamy garlic cilantro sauce ($8 with a mango smoothie) is cult-worthy. I have seen more than a few pedestrians passing the restaurant who, upon eating free samples of the tri-tip handed out by the restaurant’s gregarious owner, Pedro, immediately queue up to buy a whole sandwich. 

Everything is reasonably priced, comes in large portions, and the staff is friendly. So sit back in your lawn chain under the tarp that makes up the restaurant’s roof, listen to the bossa-nova playing over the speakers, and enjoy your tri-tip sandwich. 

2161 University Ave. 

Daily 11:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. 

Naan ‘n’ Curry 

The best cheap Indian restaurant near campus, Naan ‘n’ Curry has good food served in large portions for relatively little money. Although the a la carte dishes are more expensive—like the delicious prawn masala ($10)—it is a better deal to buy a combo dish. For example, $6 buys you a generously proportioned dish of channa masala, samosa, and naan or rice.  

2366 Telegraph Ave. 

Daily, open 24 hours a day. 

Le Petit Cheval 

Le Petit Cheval, which serves Vietnamese food, is worthy of mention if only for the great deal that is their lunch special. For $6, you can get a large plate with three different dishes (such as lemongrass chicken, green curry, and vegetables with tofu), plus rice, all of which is delicious. The restaurant itself is also very nice. You can sit either indoors or outdoors.  

2600 Bancroft Way 

Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. 

Durant food court 

The Durant food court is a veritable cornucopia of cheap food. A food-court-style grouping of independent restaurants, the place is perfect for hungry students with not much money. There are restaurants serving Korean barbeque, sushi, ramen, satay, Chinese, Italian and Greek food. Although there might be better restaurants in Berkeley, the convenience of having so many different types of restaurants in one area, each with such cheap food, outweighs any arguments against the food court.  

2521 Durant Ave. 

Hours vary by restaurant. 

Top Dog 

If you are going to buy a hot dog in Berkeley, head straight for one of the three Berkeley Top Dogs. Not only will you get a better sausage, but it might save you some gastrointestinal distress. Top Dog does not serve the usual limp sausage on a slightly soggy bun. If the (very good) plain ‘top dog’ hot dog is not enough, there are 11 other types of sausage you can try. (All sausages are $3.) For further entertainment, you can admire the Libertarian propaganda pasted on the restaurant’s walls as you munch your dog. 

2534 Durant Ave., Daily 10 a.m.-2 a.m. 

2160 Center St. 

2503 Hearst Ave. 

Mon.-Fri. 10 a.m.-11 p.m. 

Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. 

Gomnaru 

Although some people prefer Steve’s Barbeque, located in the Durant food court, Gomnaru serves better Korean barbeque at lower prices. All the barbeque dishes—each of which comes in a massive portion with rice, salad, miso soup and fried potato—are good. If you are trying to save money, go for the BBQ Chicken ($4.87) or the chicken and vegetable bibimbab ($4.60, both are significantly cheaper than at Steve’s). Otherwise, go for the barbeque spicy pork ($5.47) or bulgogi ($5.75). Even better, there are two locations: one on the north side of campus, and one on the south (next door to the Durant food court).  

2517 Durant Ave. 

2505 Hearst Ave. 

Also Worth a Visit... 

Udupi Palace  

Order #13 (lentil pancake stuffed with spinach and potatoes to be eaten with lentil soup and spicy condiments) for about $6.95  

1901 University Ave. 

Taiwan  

They’re open late and have very good General Tso’s chicken. 

2071 University Ave. 

Cancun Taqueria  

Excellent burritos. 

2134 Allston Way 

Oriental Restaurant  

Good fish. 

1782 Shattuck Ave 

Café Intermezzo  

The Veggie Delight salad feeds two for about $6, comes with a hunk of fresh-baked bread. Sandwiches are good too. 

2442 Telegraph Ave. 

La Familia 

Good inexpensive Mexican food. 

2971 Shattuck Ave. 

One of my favorite places in the East Bay is Mountain View Cemetery at the end of Piedmont Avenue in Oakland. There you find a great expanse of open space with wide, curving streets and mature trees, beautiful landscapes, a variety of wildlife, and historical artifacts. 

Tombstones, some of which date to the 1860s, of all sizes, shapes and designs, inscribed with names and languages that reflect Oakland’s international heritage, are scattered throughout the grounds. Family crypts of the Crockers, Merritts, F. “Borax” Smith, and other Oakland families prominent at the turn of the 20th century and in California history dominate the upper reaches and form “Millionaire’s Row.” One familiar San Francisco name—Ghirardelli—is there, too. The view of San Francisco from those tombs on a clear day is spectacular. 

Among the graves at the foot of “Millionaire’s Row” is that of Julia Morgan, famed architect of the early part of the twentieth century. Her grave is humbly tucked into a family plot. You’ll have to search for her name among a number of others on a large stone. A more fitting memorial to her lies just outside the cemetery gates—Chapel of the Chimes Mausoleum, a beautiful building she designed to hold ashes of people who have been cremated. 

One section of Mountain View, distinguished by cannon balls, is set aside for Civil War Veterans and another, with a near-full-sized bronze elk standing guard, for members of the Elks Lodge. A section for Jewish graves is on one side of the main road. Another, newer area, has predominately Southeast Asian names on the stones. 

But this place serves the community as more than a site for the graves and memorials. In every kind of weather, runners can be seen using the streets to get their daily miles in. It is not unusual to see young mothers from the neighborhood pushing their children in strollers on Mountain View’s streets or sidewalks, or bicycle riders. Birders come here to see a wide variety of species. In winter, especially, migrants stop over, and some ducks spend their winter on the three ponds formed by Cemetery Creek that originates higher up, in the hills. Domestic ducks are year round residents, as well as turtles.  

In addition to being of interest because of its historical and recreational benefits to the community, Mountain View Cemetery took on another historic role in 1991 when it acted as a firebreak in the Oakland hills firestorm. People from the neighborhood stood at the cemetery gates, their hearts in their throats, and watched the flames approach as they worried whether their homes would be destroyed. But the wide expanses of open land at the cemetery and at the adjoining Claremont Country Club, plus turning the sprinklers on at both places, was enough to turn the fire away.  

This is an interesting, beautiful part of Oakland. Open to the public all day, every day, it is well worth a visit. Docent led tours are available at Mountain View. Call them for days and times. Both Mountain View and Chapel of the Chimes can be reached by taking the No. 51 AC Transit bus and walking from Broadway and 51st or transferring to No. 12 AC Transit bus and exiting at the first stop on Piedmont Ave. You can get the No. 12 from MacArthur BART station, too.  

In Calcutta I heard a 6-year-old ragamuffin call out, “Baksheesh. Baksheesh. No Mommie. No Daddee, Baksheesh. Baksheesh.” Here the Berkeley street person mumbles, “ Any spare change? Spare change?” whether on North Berkeley Shattuck Avenue or South Berkeley Shattuck, or not surprisingly, on Telegraph Avenue.  

I’m a white-skinned, older retiree and fugitive from the Michigan winter and summers, and these days I live close enough to walk to the Gourmet Ghetto. For almost 25 years now I have been aware of the Shattuck Avenue street life ever since I have made myself a part of it, the walking forth , and then back, erranding along this main street.  

They are there, sitting in the sun, aimlessly talking with buddies, then again, to the passerby, “Got any spare change?” In fact, that litany of “any change today?” seems to be their reason for being out where the action is rather than stuck in a small room all day. Early on I decide that the streets and sidewalks belong to me, too. 

On my Shattuck Ave by Long’s Drugs, two regulars squat along the wall holding paper cups, or hawking the street paper. Their dreadlocks look dirty, long screws of hair fall around the faces. The clothes are nondescript. I always turn my head to glance their way, to give them a nod of recognition. So maybe I smile tightly. I keep on going, but not making eye contact. Nor giving them my change.  

The sociologists are right: We uprights—uptights—do not look at them. If we don’t look at them, we don’t see them. Perhaps they will go away. And, of course, some one of them always says, “God Bless, Ma’am”  

Did the panhandled bottle of wine, the shot of street stuff, was that what kept the one raggedy man wrapped up under the bank bay window long after sunrise, long into the afternoon? I noticed the old, frail, wizened white man, neat, with tie, collar, and worn, almost shapeless coat jacket. Nothing scruffy. Just the aura of “Poor.” 

First when the cashier at the Safeway took a dollar bill from the till in exchange for three quarters, two dimes and a nickel which the old man wordlessly poured into the cashier’s hand. Later I saw the gent lingering outside the doorway. He is new here. Maybe just on this side of town after a ruckus on the south side? This little old man would certainly have been bowled over, trampled upon in any rush. But he probably cowered inside himself, somewhere, shivering at the noise. I turn quickly as I don’t want to hear his mutter. I’m ashamed to say that I want to wipe him out of my atmosphere. And who wears a shirt and tie in public these days?  

One day a young black woman appeared on the street. Two shops past the hardware store and in front of the Cheese Board with benches in front—where the traffic for fresh bread and cheese is maintained all day. She has a good spot: A small hand lettered sign said, “Help the Homeless.” Neat. She stood for all the first weeks I saw her. Then a chair appeared. Where was she from? Where does she stay? In my mind, I ask all the questions which out loud would be nosey and impolite. How much does she rake in? Is she on drugs? What are her hopes? Her dreams?  

At my end of Berkeley, there are the regulars who know enough in 2007 to either stand or bring their own chairs. And they never sit on the benches.  

Then to top it off: There’s this white, elderly man who schlupps around Berkeley; that is, he passed underneath my balcony apartment one Sunday. I know he’s not homeless. But he’s part of the Street Scene. His shoes are newish, clean Nike-like sports. Floppy,unlaced. A dirty plaid shirt, grey hair, springing out like a rumpled washcloth. And grimy overalls.  

I picked him up once on The Arlington in Kensington as he was hitching a ride—his thumb out, but not aggressively so. I remembered him. “What are you doing up this far from home?”  

“Oh, I go to the library here. It’s different. More interesting,” he mumbled. As we whipped down and around the curves, it was mostly chat about where to let him out without directly asking him where he lived. But did he smell!!! GREATLY VERY unwashed. In moments this man so filled the car with the stench of his body, I was breathing thru my mouth.  

I know why the librarians have asked him to sit outside on the back steps.  

I do feel uncomfortable. There’s great uncomfortableness at feeling pressured. Is it my guilt that I have life easy? and they have it hard? How can I show compassion for one and not the hundreds of others?  

“Regular people don’t spend their days that way,” says my innards. “No?”  

What should we be doing for the irregulars of our town?  

Would it make a difference if the street-people had benches to sit on?  

Neighborhood residents bought the land for Cragmont Rock Park from the Cragmont Land Company and donated it to the City of Berkeley at purchase price. It was dedicated for park purposes in 1920. Dick Leonard, the “father of technical climbing,” formed the Cragmont Climbing Club, which was absorbed a few months later into the Sierra Club’s Rock Climbing Section.  

Using the techniques he had learned climbing at Cragmont Rock, Leonard planned the first technical rock climb in Yosemite in 1934. Leonard led over a hundred expeditions and climbs in the Sierra Nevada, at times with his friend, environmentalist David Brower, making many first ascents on mountains earlier thought impossible to climb. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/parks/parkspages/CragmontRock.html  

As a lifelong resident of Berkeley (born here, 1949), I have enjoyed Cragmont Rock Park at many times during my life: as a kid playing football on the oddly-shaped terraced fields; as a teen in a film my Berkeley High School English class made of Henry Fielding's novel Joseph Andrews; as a young adult showing my Cal English professor the beautiful view.  

Now in middle age, as a librarian at the Berkeley Public Library and as a poet and performer working with another Berkeley native, dancer Lucinda Weaver, I want to celebrate this wonderful park.  

I have done research at local, regional, and national institutions, and I have found little: its history remains hidden, but still I persevere.  

If you have information on the history of Cragmont Rock Park, its beginnings, its Easter Celebrations, the Friends of Cragmont Park, its many uses for climbing, picknicking, and recreation, please contact me at: 684-0931 or abbern@sbcglobal.net  

A Dream of Set-ups: Tableaux Vivants  

At Cragmont Rock Park  

There are Terraces there,  

two flat as playing fields,  

one just barely level  

that spreads to a steep hill  

encouraging rolling down.  

Any of these spaces  

invites us to parade  

music, dance, poetry  

and instructs with drama,  

characterful or not,  

primal dreams of set-ups,  

figures sculpted, moving,  

or imaginary,  

measured Tableaux Vivants.  

By figures we mean not  

only dogs or people,  

but anything that fits  

the dream, once medieval  

and miniaturized,  

but now universal,  

if we agree, joyful,  

and, yes, mandatory.  

Imagine with us, please,  

those spaces at that Park,  

Cragmont Rock Park, with trees,  

grass, climbing rocks hidden,  

views to both Town & Gown,  

Bay and Tamalpais,  

Oakland and Albany,  

Richmond, San Francisco,  

whose patron saint, Francis,  

has moved the world to peace  

for these 1000 years,  

his Tableaux in Chapels  

in the Sacro Monte  

above Lago d'Orta  

in Northern Italy.  

Here at Cragmont Rock Park,  

these wondrous 3 acres:  

"Neighborhood residents  

bought the land for Cragmont  

Rock Park from the Cragmont  

Land Company and  

donated it to  

the City of Berkeley  

at purchase price. It was  

dedicated for park  

purposes in 1920."  

From the earliest years,  

Easter ceremonies  

awakened neighbors there  

with trumpets, songs, and walks  

up Easter Way from Spruce,  

Cragmont, Euclid to the top.  

Later, with Cragmont rock,  

the CCC built walls  

and park bathroom building  

under WPA  

to beautify the Park  

à la mode so that rock-  

to-rock they built fit to  

Nature's rocks and wild brush  

as cousins, exactly as the preservation  

would dictate and desire.  

Picture on climbing rocks  

David Brower, leader  

of the Sierra Club,  

learning from Dick Leonard  

“the father of modern  

rock climbing,” holds for  

Yosemite's long climbs:  

Brower "used this special  

knowledge to prepare training  

manuals during World War II,  

which proved critical in  

enabling the 86th  

Regiment of the U.S.  

Army to surprise the Germans  

at Riva Ridge in the North  

Appennines in Italy,  

the major action  

disrupting German lines  

in southern Europe."  

All this from a small park  

hidden in Berkeley's hills!  

The upper terrace there,  

later a parking lot  

for neighbors and for teens,  

viewing from their large cars  

the views that teens must view.  

A call to festivals  

dedicated to parks  

and the ecologies  

of harmony we dream.  

Remember the sweet songs  

and find the little building  

tucked into the north side  

of Cragmont Park's hill rock,  

a building framed with rock --  

self-same rock -- once bathroom  

to the park, now shut down  

unsafe. Open locked doors,  

put inside as set-ups,  

behind the barred windows,  

clear glass for visitors,  

to view a new set-up,  

glory to Cragmont Park,  

to San Francesco,  

to Leonard and Brower,  

even to Easter Way,  

to the teens who still come,  

and to all of us here  

who would visit the Park  

for a celebration of peace, harmony  

and some resolution  

of the other dark roads  

we must travel, if not  

alone or underneath  

Imperial Bush skies,  

then at least together.  

And the briefer set-ups,  

waystations for our stays  

on the drying grass lawns,  

that will be created  

to tell partial stories  

of Cragmont Rock Park, jewel  

hidden in Berkeley's hills,  

waiting for your walk up.  

A few years ago, Michael Pollan moved here and wrote about his new garden for the New York Times Magazine. Clearly conscious of who his purported audience was (and wasn’t), he said those boilerplate things about missing fall color and spring budbreak, and that California’s seasons are “all messed up.” He also had the wit to say this: 

“It’s a good thing that states don't license gardeners the way they do drivers, because if I had to take a written test to requalify as a gardener in the state of California, I would definitely have failed. … So little of what I brought with me as a gardener seems to apply. I'd be lucky to get my learner’s permit.” 

Too few people get that clue that fast: We’re not in Kansas any more. Pollan has since written about the virtues of locality and seasonality vis-à-vis food in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and has given other evidence that he’s got a handle on this place.  

He had some typical questions then: 

What month should you plant tulips?  

Buy them as soon as you see them for sale; keep them in the fridge for a month; plant them in October or when things start to cool down. 

What's the name of the tree with fruits that resemble miniature pumpkins?  

That would be Fuyu persimmon, the kind you can eat when it’s still crunchy.  

Will basil survive the winter outdoors?  

Maybe. 

Should you stake an artichoke?  

No. And if you miss one when you harvest, you’ll get a spectacular flower to cut anyway. 

Is Mexican salvia an annual or a perennial?  

Perennial; not particularly edible. Hummingbirds appreciate it, though, and it’s tough. Prune it to almost ground level when it gets straggly. 

The next couple of months are prime planting time, when the soil’s still warm. If you have space for ornamentals, plant natives; go up to the Tilden Botanic Garden to see why. Birds migrate here, and you and they can enjoy each other this winter if you plant for them and the other locals. 

If you have, say, a windowbox or a few square feet of free dirt, you can have fresh greens and herbs PDQ.  

Lettuce, arugula, mache, chicory, endive, most salad greens do well in winter, especially with sun part of the day. If you plant them before the hot days of September and early October, they will probably bolt, so don’t rush. You can plant root veggies soon, too; carrots get weird in our clay soil, so try them in a box of potting soil for early spring eating. Cabbage relatives like broccoli (or better, broccoli raab), collards, kale, bok choy, and turnips (for roots and greens) grow all winter.  

Swiss chard, sorrel, purslane/verdolaga (which grows as a weed here), and other cooking greens love winter, and so does spinach, easiest in a box of loose, sandy soil. Radishes and scallions are practically instant gratification. Plant a chayote vine for lots of tasty weird squashlike fruit; fava beans for a spring harvest plus soil improvement. Snow peas, no surprise, are a classic winter crop. 

Herbs! Lemon balm is easy—it’s feral in Tilden Park. Winter savory wants sun; so do parsley and cilantro. Try any perennial herb, even lavender, now for a good start with minimal irrigation. You’ll have to can water until the rain starts, but many will benefit from still-warm soil temperatures.  

I like to plant some seeds and a few six-pack starts by way of role models. Some great places to shop are Spiral Gardens (Tuesday-Sunday Noon-7p.m. 2830 Sacramento St., 843-1307); the Longs Drugs (no kidding) at 51st and Broadway, Oakland; Yabusaki’s Dwight Way Nursery, 1001 Dwight Way, Berkeley (closed Thursdays; call 845-6261 for hours); Westbrae Nursery (1272 Gilman Street, north Berkeley, 526-7606); and for things you never saw before, The Dry Garden, across from Flint’s at 6556 Shattuck Ave., 547-3564.

Although I’ve been a home-owner for many years, it’s not hard to remember my renting days. I lived communally, like many of us in Berkeley, and shared cooking, food shopping and the lack of attention to property care that says “I’m a renter. Painting the house is someone else’s problem!”  

Although this was probably more emblematic of my youth than my housing status, in truth, I did care about the houses I lived in, but not to the extent I do now. That’s reasonable. Who wants to fix up someone else’s property? I certainly didn’t, although I did like making the place suit me. That included some painting inside, hanging hooks and perhaps changing a light fixture. Moreover, I should say that I didn’t have a distaste for landlords and did not, as was the aphorism of the day, consider property ownership a crime. 

I came to Cal during the slam-dancing days of Barrington Hall when Jell-O Biafra of the Dead Kennedys crooned “Let’s Lynch the Landlord.” (We still joke that Jell-O’s surprising vote count during his abortive run for S.F. Mayor only confirmed the power of the Kennedy name.) Nevertheless, many do consider landlords criminals and will cut off their noses to spite their faces sticking it to the landlord. Making the landlord an enemy and ignoring the welfare of your living space is a mistake.  

Granted, there is no reason to fix up someone else’s place but there are reasons to be conscious of the conditions around you for your own benefit and that of others. Some of those others are your fellow renters. These can quickly become the other faces set aglow by the firelight as you stand watching your homes go up in flames and yes, it IS your home, at least for today. 

Here are a few of the things you, as a tenant, can do for yourself AND your landlord to keep life and limb together and to keep the peace. In general, the thing that helps the landlord also helps you. 

Fire safety is always uppermost in my mind when I’m looking at houses and the better part of fire safety is fire escape. If you’re a renter, take 10 or 20 minutes (preferably with roommates or family if you have ‘em) to look at how you would get out in a fire from every part of your space, especially where you sleep. Give up the illusion of magnificent acts of heroism. If you’re stuck in a smoky space, you have a very short period in which to act, so be sure that the windows open wide enough to get out. If they don’t, talk to your landlord and calmly and blamelessly explain that you can’t get out of your bedroom window and that a fire could result in a death.  

Most landlords don’t want a death on their hands, and most of them don’t know much about their own property. Surprising but true. If the window is too high to jump to safety without resulting in a broken you, then get yourself a rope or chain ladder at the hardware store and install it just below the window. Make sure that you don’t block access to the ladder. I like to see one end of these screwed onto the wall so that you don’t end up throwing the whole thing out the window in a panic. Your landlord might be willing to reimburse you for this but don’t let their cheapness cost you your life. Just buy it. 

Smoke detectors are required in housing and if you don’t have a working smoke detector, please ask your landlord to install one in the hallway. It’s also a very good idea to put one in each room that’s being used as a separate living space. If someone is crashing in the attic or growing pot up there, put up an extra smoke detector. I don’t care what you’re growing. I just don’t want those grow-lights to kill everyone in the building.  

A fire can start almost anywhere in a building and the reasoning behind smoke detectors in halls, as well as inside of rooms, is that smoke simply takes too long to get through that door and that lost time means fewer minutes before your home is engulfed in flames. O.K. I’ll stop. Or not. There’s one more fire thing I want to present (no—two). Heating systems can cause fires that can cost lives or at least destroy all your stuff. Here are a couple of recommendations. First, don’t use extension cords any more than absolutely necessary and never use them with electric heaters. If you must use an electric heater, make sure it’s plugged directly into the wall and that you turn it off prior to saying your prayers (I don’t care which god(ess) is involved). 

If you have a gas heater (wall, floor or otherwise) do not put candles, fabric, newspapers, underwear or anything that can burn on or near the thing. As Mazda is my witness, I have seen wall heaters in rental units with candles melted right down inside the grate and covered over with Hindu Madras. If you die this way, you don’t get to ascend to any of the good planes of existence and probably have to come back, own property and rent to a bunch of thankless, stupid tenants who will, in turn, burn your houses down for all eternity. This is called Karma. 

Another handy item you can ask for, or simply buy, is a carbon monoxide (CO) tester. Most rentals don’t have these but should, in my rarely humble opinion. A young woman in Berkeley was killed by CO in a rental a few years ago, unleashing one of the most lurid tales of slavery, human importation and corruption we naïve Berkeleyites had ever heard.  

CO kills at least 500 people a year unintentionally (sadly suicide numbers are much higher) but many more are walking around sick and debilitated by the weakening effects of this poison. CO is utterly without taste or smell and can only be detected with the proper equipment. A CO tester costs as little as 20 bucks and is worth far more in peace of mind so…go buy one. Ask your landlord to buy it for you. This is like an intelligence test. If they say no, it’ll prove that they’re stupid. 

There there’s Mold. The word elicits fear and disgust. Many assume that mold is inherently toxic and that enough can be fatal. Mold is, in fact what makes milk into cheese and is a normal part of our world— ask any biology student, especially a mycologist. Molds are in your apartment right now. They can hurt some people some of the time. So can a glass of water. If mold (or something that looks like it —remember, you’re not a mycologist) appears to be growing in your space, contact your landlord. If it keep growing and they are seriously ignoring you, call the city housing office or a tenant advocacy agency (Berkeley has several). Mold, mildew or other fungi are almost always associated with excessive moisture. This may mean a plumbing leak, a roof leak or ground water that’s seeping into your space. These are usually not very dangerous (unless you have a specific allergy to what’s there) but should be viewed as a litmus test for excessive moisture. If your landlord is smart, they’ll take an interest, get help and eliminate the source of moisture. Bleach can be used to kill the remaining growths. 

So these are a few of the things you can, as a tenant, be attuned to. Sadly, we can’t cover the wider range but I would like to finish by offering a little advice on how to deal with landlords and how to improve your rental experience. 

Now some landlords are just plain dumb. There’s no lipstick for this pig, it’s just the simple truth but it’s not pandemic. Most landlords are smart about money and, at least somewhat smart about the care of property. Since many tenants are less than sterling, they may tend, as a group, to be somewhat callous toward those dear souls whose welfare has been entrusted to them. 

If you try, just a little, to appeal to the logical side of the landlord, you may find success. Tell the landlord when something has broken or begun to fail. Leaks should be presented at once. It’s only the real stinkers who will accuse you of wrong-doing. Most will be very happy to know that there’s a problem and most will similarly be perturbed to discover that a leak in your abode has been doing damage for months. The landlord has a right to know as soon as possible of anything that may affect the condition of their real estate. Keep in mind that most owners of property are pretty cheap. They may do what is necessary but few will spend much that has no obvious return. Remember, they bought the property to make money, not to spend it. It may be hard to imagine but you may, one day, view your own rental property in just the same way. 

Tenants and landlords don’t necessary have to hold hands, sing songs or cuddle up and watch Terms of Endearment. It might be enough for them to simply play their parts and not bounce too many checks. 

A few of years ago the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) decided to change its name to the California College of Art (CCA). While it may not have been a direct slur against craft, I took it pretty hard (I’m very sensitive). What’s wrong with craft, I thought. We craftspersons need not hang our head in shame. Ceramics are neither lowly or common. Wood working is as valid and rich as painting and weaving, well, just ask any weaver; I’ll say no more.  

Personally, I think Frederick Meyer would be saddened. Herr Meyer, a German emigre, cabinet maker and founder of the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts (the original name of CCA) in 1907 (yes, one hundred years ago!) was an ARTIST. Crafts are a form of art, as much as poetry, drama or dance.  

One of those CRAFTS that I call art is home-building, and the Bay Area, and certainly our East Bay, are galleries of thousands of wonderful works, some by well-known architects like John Hudson Thomas and many by unknown common geniuses. 

America is nearly last in the world in supporting the arts and California is dead last among the 50 states (for shame). The very least we can do, if nothing else, is to buy up and restore these many fine works of art (or craft if you like) thus saving them from becoming compost. They can, for the most part, last for hundreds of years, if properly cared for and, far too often, fall apart in mere decades from simple neglect.  

Now, the garbage manufactured for mass consumption in the ‘70s is welcome to this demise, but the gorgeous little gems of the 1920s should be blessed and caressed and brought back to full constitution wherever we can. 

If you buy an older house in the Bay Area, you may want to have some idea of what sorts of jobs will be required and setting aside aesthetics for a moment, I’d like to lay out, what I see as the primary tasks needed when taking possession of your art work. 

Quakes 

We’re overdue by roughly a decade for a really big one. Older homes were not built with this in mind, but luckily most can be “retrofitted” with the additional bolting and bracing that they need for roughy 10K. Given the huge losses that can occur this is well worth it. Make sure you have someone extremely well versed in these techniques. Many who are not sufficienty expert can waste your money, despite their best intentions, and leave you with a false sense of security.  

The single best seismic upgrade is the installation of an automatic seimic gas shutoff valve. These are being required in some communities as part of the sale or remodeling process but don’t wait for it to become law. Just do it. At around 400-500 bucks it’s good no-fault insurance (yes, I am having fun at your expense). 

Fire 

First day in the new house, put up smoke detectors. Fire is our greatest enemy, even in earthquake country. In fact, fire is our greatest enemy during earthquakes since you’re more likely to lose your house to fire than to shaking. That’s why the gas valve is so important (although explosions are no fun either). 

Smoke detectors should be on ceilings, never on walls. Smoke goes to ceilings. Get them away from corners. Smoke curls past the corner. Put them inside and outside of rooms. Basically, put them up in the bedrooms and in the hallway. If you have more than one floor, put at least one on each floor.  

Change batteries when you reset your clocks; twice a year. You can remember that, right? When you’re buying smoke detectors, pick up a carbon monoxide (CO) detector as well. One should be fine and location is not critical. CO is deadly and odorless. The only house that doesn’t need one of these is one that is all electric. Any gas appliance can produce CO. 

The most important part of fire protection is ready escape. Make sure you can operate every window and door without a tool or key. The building codes have now caught up with this and those inside keyed locks are now in violation of the lastest codes. Sadly, it will take decades for us to get rid of them all. Remember that children can’t operate sticky windows or find keys. Make it as easy as possible to escape and this include removing window bars or at very least making sure that you have openable ones. Frankly, even they restrict access and prevent fire personnel from quick entry. 

Lead 

Old houses have it. All of them. Lead is extremely poisonous and can cause developmental disability in children. Many thousands of East Bay children have been exposed in recent years and there is no safe level. Our bodies cannot tolerate and do not need lead. Main rule; Don’t sand. If there are paint chips visible, call your local lead prevention program. Alameda’s is the ACLPPP and is found, not surprisingly at www.ACLPPP.com.  

Most communities will give you a lead kit and will loan you a powerful and highly filtered vacuum for clean up. The best plan is to do no prep yourself. If you want to wash walls inside and apply a new coat of paint, fine. If you want to strip, sand or refinish parts of the interior (even clear finishes may contain lead!), hire a licensed professional and stay away ‘til they’re done (actually, it is possible to seal off several rooms using plastic and tape. They even make zippers for plastic barriers). 

Slips and falls 

Old houses, and newer ones as well, often lack good fall prevention. The codes still allow windows 2’ above the floor, which I think is loony. If you have little ones, take a look at the windows and think about the potential for falls. You may choose to use special locks or guards that raise the effective sill level to 3’. Stairways should have handrails that you can easily grip. It’s best to place these about 3’ above the stair nosing. If you have outside stairs that are smoothly painted, just imagine them wet and slippery when your high-heeled house guest leaves the party after dark, a little tipsy. Oh yes, it’s also dark outside because there’s no lamp on the front porch and she’s in a hurry. Now, I won’t lecture you on high heels or alcohol but it is wise to add texture to smooth outside surfaces (you can add it to the paint), to make sure hand rails are present, and to add light to any stairway or level change around the outside of the house.  

If you have a set of stairs leading from the yard down to the sidewalk or driveway, don’t forget to add a handrail there (if there are more than three steps) and to add a little lighting (solar lamps don’t require any wiring and are a nice easy choice for a spot like this). 

Electricity 

We can’t cover everything that you might want to know about your old house in one short article but these are a few of the things that I consider most important. Let’s finish with your old electric system. 

Electrical systems burn houses down. It’s not a myth. It’s the truth. Electrocution is rare and should not be overplayed but bad wiring can and does cause fires. There are a LOT of terrible electrical system around. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with an old “knob and tube” system, (these are the first wiring systems and run from the turn of the 20th century up to around the 1950’s. (technologies changed veerrry sloowwly)) older wiring system have often been abused by non-professionals and made dangerous.  

Fuses are also not inherently dangerous and are, in some ways, superior to breakers but when abused or misued can also become dangerous.  

There’s no easy fix for all of this. When you get into your new house, get yourself an electrician (or a home inspector) and give it the once over. While you can say no to a large number of new outlets and lamps, adding more circuits is a central method in creating safer wiring. The more branches we have, the cooler they all stay. If your wiring is from before 1910, you may want to replace nearly everything. If it’s from 1930, you may be able to save much while adding much. Again, talk to someone who knows. 

A few last thoughts. Do fewer jobs and do each one really well. It’ll create joy and you won’t be doing that one again. When picking contractors, don’t pick the cheap one. It’s rarely worth it. 

For every practical job you do, do one just for fun. This cuts down on owner burnout. Go wild with paint and lighting and flooring (in fact, paint your floor). Go look at other houses and copy what you like. It’s not cheating and if it is, who cares. Throw parties to show off your house or, if you prefer, hide inside with your cat. 

One last thing, don’t worry about your roof. Everyone worries about the roof and I haven’t yet heard of one death caused by a leaking roof. 

Berkeley residents who get tired of being called NIMBYs and worse by the powers-that-be think they have problems. The artists and other denizens of West Berkeley who object to the new taxation scheme which the big property owners are trying to foist on the neighborhood they call home are currently getting the full treatment from those who think they know what’s best for the area: how to clean it up and make it all nicey-nice for the newly lucrative biotech labs and the high-end condos speculators are hoping to build near them. Their turf is also the target of city re-zoning efforts both spot (Berkeley Bowl) and far-reaching (auto dealership specials). They complain, with some justification, that their now-affordable housing and workspaces are being threatened by gentrification, that there’s obvious inequality in the way different contenders for West Berkeley space are being treated. 

Well, perhaps they’d better watch their language. In Berlin, a sociology professor who specializes in documenting the effects of urban renewal on minority populations was arrested, along with three colleagues, and put in solitary confinement for three weeks under Germany’s draconian post-911 “anti-terrorist” laws. The evidence? Prosecutorial word-spotters detected those suspect words “gentrification” and “inequality” in his published academic articles. Not only that, he met with some of the more radical anti-urban-renewal dissidents without taking his cell-phone along, presumably so that he couldn’t be tracked by police spying on the “militant group” (known just as “mg”) which has been blamed for a number of arson attacks on construction projects.  

The Deutsche-Welle website reported that, “the prosecutor’s office said Andrej H. [Holm] had met with a suspected member of mg twice and that the researcher used ‘keywords and phrases’ in his academic texts that had appeared in documents written by mg, such as the term ‘gentrification,’ according to news reports. It also said that ‘as an employee of a research institute, [he] had access to libraries where he could inconspicuously do the research required for the founding of a militant group.’ ” As of Thursday, Professor Holm was out of jail, but the charges against him had not been dropped.  

Thank goodness, things are nothing like that bad around here. There are, however, many echoes of the German attitude that those in power know what’s good for you, and if you protest you’re suspect, to be seen in many local controversies in the Bay Area and elsewhere. For example, there’s a big development project proposed for the Bayview-Hunter’s Point area right now which proponents are sure will be great, but some local folks aren’t sure and are protesting. Developers and established community leaders are united in applying derogatory labels to their protests. 

Academics around the world are busy with petitions on Professor Holm’s behalf. The progressive planning associations (yes, there are some) are doing their best to get the German government to listen to reason. But even supporters are carefully qualifying their opinions to make sure they’re not linked to the radical anti-globalization points of view which the “mg” crowd is thought to espouse.  

Here in Berkeley plenty of voices have been raised to suggest that if it’s good for British Petroleum (now just coyly ‘BP’) or for auto dealers or for the Bayer corporation or for any of the other big landholders in West Berkeley it must be good for everyone. They’ve got a right to these opinions, of course, and we support that right by giving them space in the paper to express them. But they cross a line when they suggest that there’s something illegitimate about citizens who don’t like the plans that are being made. And city officials, both elected and hired, who disparage citizen complainers and do their best to evade their scrutiny are even worse, since theoretically their job is to serve the people, all the people, not just the economically powerful people. 

And the various individuals and groups who are scrapping with AC Transit and UC Berkeley deserve to get some respect too. The people who are mad at the transit agency’s plans, with just a couple of exceptions, sincerely want to be able to get somewhere efficiently on the bus. Their major gripe is that they think the limited amount of public money could be spent more intelligently to accomplish that goal.  

The UC neighbors who think that building a glorified gym and offices right next to the Hayward fault, with road access already over-burdened, are not crypto Stanford fans or opponents of physical fitness. The Planet has published a number of letters from the letter-writing campaign being organized by parents of student athletes, who of course are entitled to promote what they think their kids need or at least what they want. But we’ve also gotten links to blogs being written by other supporters, and with friends like those the UC Student Athlete High Performance Center doesn’t need enemies. A sample, from a blog called calgoldenbears: “IT IS TIME WE THOUGHT OF EVERYONE AND NOT JUST THE TREES, THE RICH LAND OWNERS, AND THE OUT OF CONTROL FARCE THAT IS BERKELEY CITY GOVERNMENT.” (all caps sic).  

For those who once were proud to attend a school that seldom won a football game, people like this guy look like prime examples of how our alma mater has gone downhill. Back in the day, the football players used to train at Edwards Field, and then run all the way to the stadium, accompanied by student cheers as they passed. Is it really an improvement to put the new gym (which will serve a maximum of 500 students daily out of perhaps 40,000) in an area poorly served by mass transit, so that it must have a huge parking lot? Of course, when have footballers ever taken the bus?  

But no matter how put-upon our local civic watchdogs must feel sometimes, and even if being called “civic watchdogs” sometimes feels to some of them like an insult, they should keep an eye on the chilling tale of what’s been happening to Professor Andrej Holm in Berlin. If they do, they will surely realize that there are worse fates than simply being unappreciated. It’s true that a prophet is often without honor in his or her own country, but at least here, now, we don’t throw our prophets in jail for using the wrong vocabulary.  

Happy New Year! That’s right. In Berkeley, the end of August is the beginning of a new year for many of us—for students, for teachers and researchers, and for many of the thousands of service workers who make life easier for them. The University of California is our largest employer, with the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley City College, the Berkeley Unified School District and several independent schools bringing many more students and employees to town every fall. 

And though Berkeley is the center of all of this academic activity, it doesn’t stop at the Berkeley borders. An ever-increasing percentage of those who are drawn here by our educational institutions live outside the city limits, even though they still think of themselves as being “at Berkeley.”  

What this means is that every year about this time thousands and thousands of new readers are discovering the exciting urban area we call the East Bay. East of what, you may ask. Well, on the other side of the Bay Bridge you’ll find what is sometimes called the West Bay Area, but it’s more familiarly known nationally as San Francisco. It’s a fine city in its own right, but here on our side of San Francisco Bay we have a good sampling of the best of everything to be found in what many of us think, with no false modesty, is the best place to live in the world.  

We’d like to help you to get to know this great area and to get to know the Berkeley Daily Planet at the same time. The Planet is a very unusual publication, appropriate for a unique area like the East Bay. In the first place, despite the name (a tribute to Clark Kent’s paper in Superman lore) it’s published twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Then, it’s an independent paper, locally owned, not part of any chain. This is important because almost all of the papers you’re likely to see here are now part of corporate conglomerates. The Media News corporation has recently swallowed up almost every paper in a ring around San Francisco, from the once-great San Jose Mercury News all the way down to the “East Bay” Daily News, one of a string of similarly named papers with almost identical content. In fact, on any given day in Berkeley you might pick up three or four Media News papers with different mastheads but many stories repeated verbatim. 

And the San Francisco Chronicle is now part of the Hearst empire and, sad to say is being dumbed-down at a rapid rate. Many of its best writers and editors have recently departed for greener pastures, and fluff rules on the front page.  

The Planet is one of the few papers left in the United States which refuses to talk down to its readers. Our surveys tell us that the New York Times is the other paper read regularly by people who read the Planet, and our readers also get a lot of their state, national and international news from the Internet. But for a serious look at what’s happening around here, news that you need to know because it will affect you, there’s no substitute for picking up a Planet twice a week.  

Our opinion section is probably the most informative part of the paper. We don’t just present “both sides”—in Berkeley (and everywhere in the East Bay) issues have many sides. We show them all, hotly debated by our literate reader-contributors, and not just as two-hundred-word soundbyte letterettes.  

But we’re not all serious all the time. There are a lot of things to enjoy about life in the East Bay, and we want to help our readers find out about them. That’s the purpose of this special issue, which doesn’t contain any hard news at all. Instead, it’s a guide to just a few of the amazing resources that make our home—now perhaps your new home—a special place. Save it. You’ll use it again and again.  

One thing that makes our area, and especially Berkeley, different from places you might have lived in before, is the surprising number of owner-operated businesses. The Planet is just one of them. There are a lot more, many of them our loyal advertisers. 

Next Sunday a free outdoor event in Berkeley’s charming Fourth Street shopping area will celebrate the kind of transition that seldom happens elsewhere. A chain store is being replaced by a unique, locally owned store (which has, however, an international reputation). Hear Music, since 1999 just an arm of the enormous Starbucks chain, is out, and Down Home Music, one of the few businesses which deserve the over-used adjective “legendary,” is in. The elegant digs, originally designed for Hear in its pre-Starbucks incarnation by Fourth Street czar Denny Abrams, remain intact in a historic building, and some of the knowledgeable Hear staff members are staying on. 

Down Home’s original store, which will stay open, has been in a strip mall in El Cerrito. It was founded in 1976 by the also-legendary Chris Strachwitz. He’s the genius behind Arhoolie Records, the repository of every conceivable kind of what is loosely called roots music from around the country and the world. The party will feature some of Down Home’s artists who are based in the East Bay: Eric and Suzy Thompson, Barbara Dane, Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, Johnny Harper, Los Cenzontles, Alexa Weber Morales, and the Tri Tip Trio Zydeco Band, plus special surprise guests. It’s at 1809 Fourth St. in Berkeley on Sunday, Aug. 26, from noon to 5 p.m. 

Photograph by Michael O’Malley. 

Founder Chris Strachwitz discusses news of the music world at his new Down Home Music store on Fourth Street with Dwayne Sparks, booker for Kimball’s, which is rehabilitating the old UC theater in downtown Berkeley for a new jazz club.

DOUGHBOYS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On a humorous note: For many years now, my favorite character on TV ads was the Pillsbury Doughboy. He was sweet, naive, and incredibly cute. But when Karl Rove surfaced as Bush’s brain, I felt Rove had tainted my adoration of the “Boy” by his unfortunate physical similarity to my favorite character. Now that Rove has hopefully gone back into obscurity, I can regain my adoration for the wonderful, squeaky Doughboy whom I now can continue to love. 

Robert Blau 

• 

GETTING IT STRAIGHT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been reading Mr. Hardesty’s letters with great interest and am working to absorb his arguments about the role of guns in the deterrence of crime. Let me see if I’ve gotten this right: The reason there is so much gun violence is that there are too few guns. 

Peter Josheff 

• 

DISCOVERING THE EAST BAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wanted to thank you for all the wonderful historical and activities information about Berkeley and the East Bay, packed into the Aug. 21 issue of the Planet. 

At various times I have gone to the Berkeley Visitors Bureau when needing exactly such helpful information. Unfortunately, other than a slick and generally useless pamphlet, they had little to offer. Planning activities for new arrivals, visiting friends and family is never simple, but the Aug. 21 issue of the Planet will make things much easier. I would like to suggest that you reformat the issue so that it might become a visitors (and locals’) guide book. Perhaps you could get the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce or even the city to contribute to the cost of such a project. Heaven knows, our taxes are spent for plenty of less worthy projects. In fact I would happily purchase such a guide. 

That said, I must admit that after reading the current issue cover to cover, I rushed out and sequestered three more (free) copies of the Planet for my “archives.” 

Peter Klatt 

• 

EASTSHORE STATE PARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I assume that Joe Eaton’s omission of Eastshore State Park from his list of viewing spots in his article, “Finding Nature by the Bay,” is because he too recognizes that it is not open to the public except for a single path that almost no one has used in the past three years, most likely because it is so unpleasant. I have written to you before about this subject and I don’t want to harp on it, but the years pass while the area of the park remains closed to all of us here in Berkeley who once enjoyed it. Neither Joe Eaton or Ron Sullivan or Marta Yamamoto ever mentions it, and for all I know they may have supported the closing of the area along with those special interest groups that took control of it. As I said before it is a huge area that has more than enough room for humans and nesting birds to share together in peace and harmony, and I can’t see any real environmental or ecological reason to exclude the former from it. 

I wrote to the Sierra Club and East Bay Regional Parks and the Audubon Society asking them to comment on the situation, but I have received no replies. I know for a fact that none of the groups that the Audobon Society sponsors for nature viewing have ever visited this so-called park, most likely because the single trail is so unpleasant and unaffordable to such viewing. 

In the past three years since the area has been closed there have been, as far as I have been able to see, no new birds nesting there, and I can’t see any reason for maintaining the fence and the restrictions. It is public land and I don’t feel it’s right that a minority should take control of it and exclude the public from it. 

Pete Najarian 

• 

GRIZZLY PEAK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I truly appreciate the attention your newspaper is drawing to the remarkable features of the East Bay, but I can’t let your article about Grizzly Peak’s 75th anniversary go without commenting on the incredible amount of litter and debris that typically festoons this world-class stretch of road. We are so lucky to have it, yet the beauty of driving it and discovering the incredible views is badly tarnished by the sight of trash and debris strewn along the roadway and against the embankments. 

People come from around the world to visit Berkeley, and those who venture up to the top of the hills they’ve heard so much about must think we are a bunch of pigs for the way we treat the surroundings we are so blessed to have. I drive this road almost daily, and I am always torn by the beauty of it contrasted by the ugliness left by those who trash it. It has become an embarrassment to drive visiting friends and relatives up to the greatest view the Bay Area has to offer, while attempting to muster some sort of explanation for the garbage strewn about. 

Is this really the best we can do? Is there no accountability? Can’t we at least post some of those “$1,000 Fine for Littering” signs? And maybe enforce them too? I’d love to hear commentary from the agencies with jurisdiction of the area between Centennial Drive and Fish Ranch Road. 

Michael Minasian 

• 

A PRESIDENT WITH EXPERIENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am glad to see how concerned people are that our presidential candidates have enough experience. After all, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. We have already elected one redneck president whose only experience consisted of less than two years of school, a few terms in the Illinois House of Representatives and one term in Congress. If we are not vigilant, this presidential election cycle may result in us repeating that history with a candidate like Barack Obama, who has considerably more education, but only slightly more experience in Illinois state government and Congress than Abraham Lincoln.  

Thomas Stephen Laxar 

El Cerrito 

• 

CHRIS KAVANAGH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Aug. 14, you published a letter from Leslie Fleming purporting to defend Chris Kavanagh. She didn’t identify her own “credentials,” but she spilled a lot of ink attacking the personal and political “credentials” of other letter-writers. 

I am one of those attacked by Ms. Fleming. She’s got her facts wrong in several ways, but I won’t bother to correct her. Nor will I question her motives, because I don’t want to join her in a tactic that is all too common in Berkeley—namely, that when you can’t answer an argument, you launch a personal attack instead.  

By ignoring the hard facts of the Kavanagh case, Fleming admits their truth. The truth is that despite filing multiple statements, under oath, claiming he lives in Berkeley, Kavanagh doesn’t. There’s no gray area—Kavanagh doesn’t have “two leases,” for example. He has one, and it’s in Oakland. The owners and managers of both the Berkeley addresses he has used deny that he has ever lived in either place. And there’s no evidence that he is just “visiting” a girlfriend or anyone else at the Oakland address. Kavanagh, and only Kavanagh, is the sole tenant at the Oakland address. He was the only tenant on the lease, and he was the only tenant fighting eviction (with the help of lawyers getting paid by the Rent Board, no less). If there really is some other co-tenant, no one, including Kavanagh, has ever produced any evidence she exists. 

These hard facts raise public policy issues that I addressed in my Aug. 3 opinion piece. But like so many ideologues, Ms. Fleming tries to avoid the serious issues by questioning the motives of people on the other side. These issues go far beyond our dysfunctional Rent Board, and include the corruption at the Housing Authority, the proliferation of subsidized “non-profit” high rises, the sad state of downtown and Telegraph businesses, the near strangulation of nearly all our roads, and a persistent budget crisis. Ignoring the issues, and attacking the messengers, won’t make them go away. 

What Berkeley needs most is a new style of argument, one that results in less noise and more light.  

David Wilson 

• 

HEALTHY LIVING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your Aug. 17 Healthy Living column read like an ad for xylitol. I don’t question Mrs. Harmon’s position, but her style is questionable, and I wish she answered her own questions, “If xylitol really keeps down decay, why hadn’t I heard about it, and why aren’t the toothpaste companies rushing to market it?” 

Ken Geis 

• 

KENNETH FOSTER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing about the case of Kenneth Foster who is scheduled for execution in Texas on Aug. 30. The unjust law under which Mr. Foster was convicted also exists in California as “murder felony,” a law that can convict a suspect of murder through indirect circumstances rather than direct involvement.  

In this instance Kenneth Foster sat in a car 80 feet from an altercation between Michael LaHood and Mauriceo Brown. Mr. LaHood was killed, and eventually Mr. Brown was executed. Now Mr. Foster will pay for a crime he didn’t commit with his life. Please contact Governor Perry in Texas to try to stop this unjust execution and help reverse the State of California’s “felony murder” that operates in a similar fashion. 

Summer Brenner 

• 

SLOW AT THE THROTTLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Newspapers seem to be a little slow on the throttle at nailing down important issues. A point in case: Republicans are trying to steal California’s electoral votes with a ballot initiative that even a stone could see through. Has your readership been enlightened yet?  

The anti-immigration movement, composed primarily of white males, and with vestiges of the KKK, are demonizing and targeting Mexicans and Latinos for no other reason than an innate prejudice and intolerance. How long are the news services going to let these cretins, who mask their bigotry and ignorance under the guise of flag and country, get away with their charade? 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley 

On Aug. 22, Berkeley Housing Authority board members were scheduled to vote on a resolution to terminate it’s existing housing assistance waiting list. There was little to no advance warning that this was about to occur, and it caught the housing community by surprise. 

On the surface, Berkeley’s plan to terminate it’s current housing assistance waiting list appears to be little more than a political statement claiming that things are better, when in reality this plan does not seem to be a real solution to the past problems in the agency. 

The plan to dump over 5,000 people from the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) waiting list is a slap in the face to all of the elderly, poor and disabled families who have done everything right to get on the list, and stay on the list. 

Worse yet, it appears that the newly installed board members of the BHA have not come up with a viable plan or proposal that would guarentee that a new waiting list would be properly maintained in the future. Destroying the BHA’s housing assistance waiting lists does nothing to resolve the present crisis for those needing assistance, and only makes the present scandal worse because destroying the current waiting list precisely hurts those that it was meant to assist. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) may establish local preferences for selecting applicants from its waiting list. As an example, PHAs may give a preference to a family who is homeless or living in substandard housing. Or for those who are paying more than 50 percent of their income for rent, or have been involuntarily displaced. Families who qualify for any such local preferences move ahead of other families on the list who do not qualify for any preference. Each PHA has the discretion to establish local preferences to reflect the housing needs and priorities of its particular community.” 

Preferences mean that people are being bumped out of line all the time in housing authorities all across the nation for various reasons, and this is nothing new to those familiar with the way housing authorities are being operated. It certainly does not mean that the PHA’s waiting lists need to be destroyed or purged, and that everyone in line should be dumped from the waiting lists only to have to start all over again. 

After the Huricane Katrina disaster demolished the gulf states, housing authorities across the nation ignored their current waiting lists to give preference to disaster victims who relocated to their regions, and it created a whole new set of problems and resentment for those that were bumped out of line by Katrina’s victims. This same sort of scenario would play out in Berkeley, if a new list bumped everyone out of line, and new people were given their place. In addition HUD says, “During the application process, the PHA will collect information on family income, assets, and family composition. The PHA will verify this information with other local agencies, your employer and bank, and will use the information to determine program eligibility and the amount of the housing assistance payment. If the PHA determines that your family is eligible, the PHA will put your name on a waiting list, unless it is able to assist you immediately.” 

Whether the waiting lists in Berkeley have been properly maintained or not through the years, as long as the current people on the waiting lists meet the eligibility requirements for housing assistance, and no one improperly bumps them up in line ahead of others, there should be no problems and the current waiting lists could easily be updated if necessary when openings occur. 

Currently the BHA website says, “The BHA is not currently processing applications from the wait list for new vouchers. This is because the BHA does not have funding available to provide new vouchers at this time. You will be contacted in writing, by mail, when your name reaches the top of the wait list and funds available for additional vouchers to be issued.” If there are no funds available for those already on the current waiting lists and the BHA is not processing applications regardless of one’s status, one can only wonder what is the point in spending tens of thousands of dollars to create a whole new waiting list... As is, thousands needing housing assistance in Berkeley have already patiently waited for as long as 8 years, and many have done everything required of them by the BHA to update their files when a change in status occurs. They should not be punished and told to go to the back of the line because of staff mismanagement in the agency. 

Since the proposed purge is not being mandated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), or being demanded by any other over-sight agency as a means to save the BHA, this all sounds like another political blunder and a big waste of time and money during a very crucial period for the BHA’s scarce resources, and needy clients. 

People should keep in mind that when the Oakland Housing Authority last opened up their waiting list during January of 2006, an astounding 40 percent of Oakland’s low-income families filed applications for housing assistance. 

If the BHA purged their current waiting lists and started taking new applications over the proposed five-day application period, they can expect way more than 5,000 low-income families to fill out applications for the new waiting list. When considering that it would take (new) BHA staff members a minimum of 15 minutes or more to prepare a new file for each client that just signed up for the new waiting list, this dubious venture may easily end up costing around $75,000 or more before the dust settles. 

Creating a new waiting list for the BHA would only guarentee that everyone on the current list has to start all over at the back of the line. It would be cost prohibitive, and it is not a guarenteed solution to problems of incompetence or mismanagement that has plagued this much needed agency through the years. The City of Berkeley needs to respect those who are already on the BHA’s waiting lists, and stop wasting precious resources for political reasons that do not offer solutions. 

Lynda Carson is one of the founding members of Save Berkeley Housing Authority. 

Last Friday the Oak-to-Ninth Referendum Committee held a rally in front of Oakland City Hall to mark the one-year anniversary of the turn-in of the 25,000 petition signatures requiring that the Oak-to-Ninth Development Agreement be put to a vote of the public. 

Although this referendum is about one development project in the City of Oakland, it raises issues that should concern all citizens living in a democracy, not just the voters of Oakland.  

One issue is the corruption of the democratic process by money in which politicians sell off public assets to the moneyed interests in return for campaign contributions.  

Oak-to-Ninth is a 64-acre Tideland Trust land that belongs to the public. A previous City Council voted to put parks and other public spaces there by passing the very well considered Estuary Policy Plan in 1999 and Voters of Oakland passed measure DD in 2002 to initiate the financing of the park. But the will of the voters was co-opted. Don Perata, who had received financial support from the developer, arranged the necessary legislation, SB1622, to allow Tidelands Trust land to be sold. Then, a new City Council, led by De la Fuente and Kernighan, shepherded through an Ordinance which approved developer Signature Properties’ plan to build 3,100 condo units on the property. The 64 acres of public waterfront that Oakland voters had supported as a park was sold by the City Council for mere $18 million to a private developer.  

The second issue is the abridgment of the voters’ constitutional right to petition the government.  

Oakland City Attorney John Russo first rejected the petition claiming that it did not include the correct version of the ordinance. The petitioners used the ordinance that was passed by the City Council on July 17, 2006 but the ordinance was modified after its passage. So the problem is not that the petitioners used the wrong ordinance but that the City Council did not follow its own City Charter in passing the ordinance.  

The city attorney then objected to the petition based on the assertion that some petition gatherers were unqualified for technical reasons; however, the First Amendment to our Constitution is very clear: 

“Congress shall make no law abridging the…right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 

The laws that put restrictions on petition gatherers abridge the petition process. Such restrictions permit moneyed interests to sandbag petitioners in lengthy and costly litigation. The right of the petitioner to have his/her signature counted outweighs all else.  

Our republic is in a crisis. Both of our major parties have been bought off by corporate money, and the current administration has gutted our Constitution. We need citizen awareness and participation to reverse the corruption of our political process. We should demand that our elected officials represent the voters who elect them rather than moneyed interests. 

This fight is not just for us but also for our future generations. We should make a stand that our children would be proud of. We need a new dawn in our democracy. We can start by standing up to the corrupt political process and on the way bequeath to our children a beautiful water front park for all of Oakland to use and be proud of. 

Akio Tanaka is an Oakland resident.

Becky O’Malley’s Aug. 10 editorial, “Planners Come and Go, But the Department Never Changes,” blamed departing city planner Mark Rhoades’ malodorous planning style on three factors: the loss of municipal revenues created by Proposition 13, policies set by Rhoades’ bosses, and the natural tendency of regulatory agencies to be hijacked by those they regulate.  

While her points are well-taken, Ms. O’Malley inaccurately minimized Mr. Rhoades’ personal culpability, implying that “the system” is so corrupt that individual actors bear little responsibility for their roles in it. This is not only untrue and harmful, it is also offensive to every honest person in the world, because we all live within systems that reward dishonesty, but most of us act ethically nonetheless. 

The Planet’s Aug. 17 front-page story, “Controversial Planner Hailed On Departure,” was also an odd choice. An incestuous handful of developers and parasitic consultants bemoaning the loss of “their boy” in the planning department is no more than a “Dog Bites Man” story. The “Man Bites Dog” story was that over a hundred victims of Rhoades, from all kinds of neighborhoods and political backgrounds, attended another party to celebrate Rhoades’ departure. Rarely is a municipal employee is so unpopular that his departure causes public celebration. So that’s the news. 

Ms. O’Malley correctly wrote that Mr. Rhoades “[tried] to evade the public will by any means necessary,” which is supported by Rhoades’ own words at the developer party. This was Mr. Rhoades’ personal ethical choice, fueled by his personal planning ideology. I do not accept the Nuremburg Defense: “I was just following orders,” revived by Ms. O’Malley as “Prop. 13 made me do it.” Nor do I accept the notion that Rhoades was simply taking orders from the City Council or his bosses. He was an eager, proactive policy maker.  

Mark Rhoades was proud to be a self-described “change agent.” He helped write a 2003 want ad for planners, promoting Berkeley as a place “where planners set the pace,” and where they could test their “New Urbanist” philosophies. At the time, I wrote that Berkeley citizens, the City Council, and their land use commissioners might be surprised to learn that it is not they, but our staff planners, who “set the pace” in Berkeley.  

Mark Rhoades was a “smart growth” extremist who “set the pace” by helping developers maximize building sizes. Density—not protection of the public, nor obedience to the law, nor creating a livable city—was his goal. “Creative” interpretation and selective enforcement of laws and policies was his method. When a development project came his way, Rhoades twisted the zoning ordinance and other applicable laws beyond all recognition to permit the largest possible project. Then he smoothly “sold” his interpretation of the law to the Zoning Adjustments Board and later—upon inevitable appeal—to the City Council. The new interpretation then became policy by this precedent.  

Rhoades knew that the best time to control a project was at the beginning, not the end. At the end, it was difficult for the council to turn down a project, even when displeased with aspects of Rhoades’ handiwork. So the council ratified Rhoades’ policies ex post facto by approving these projects. But this project-based policy making was consistently “Rhoades-up,” not “council-down.” When Rhoades became too “creative” for the council, he easily outmaneuvered them. After all, Berkeley taxpayers paid him handsomely to figure out how to do so, while council members are paid a pittance to represent the people.  

So Rhoades was a clever, disarming, and energetic ideologue who made policy by taking advantage of a philosophical and power vacuum left by an underpaid and inattentive City Council and overworked, amateur commissioners. He needed nothing more than that, but he had more.  

More than a few council members were happy to allow Rhoades to make policy when it served their favored developers. Without Rhoades, they would have had to change the laws themselves by the normal, unpleasantly public, and oh-so-time-consuming democratic process. Rhoades was able to create land use policy quickly, behind the scenes, without public process. This is why Rhoades was unusually popular (and chummy) with the big developers and their “smart growth” allies.  

Rhoades’ most tangible legacies are his abuse of the state density bonus law to create huge, neighborhood-busting buildings, and a downtown full of small, low-quality units occupied by students. Rhoades’ less visible legacy is the loss of trust between citizens and their government. His actions tainted other departments and greatly reduced taxpayers’ willingness to support the city. He also leaves behind junior planners following in his slippery footsteps, and a flock of imperious developers who have grown both rich and accustomed to having their interests placed above the public good. Both will be hard to reform or remove.  

All residents of Berkeley, except those few large developers, were losers during Rhoades’ tenure. Everyone suffers from loss of the commons, loss of good housing and demographic diversity, loss of historic resources, loss of respect for the law, loss of trust in government, and loss of tax dollars on appeals and lawsuits. Those near developments also suffer loss of livability, views, open space, greenery, parking (both commercial and residential), and community. The lives of neighborhood leaders are devastated. This too impacts everyone, because time spent fighting bad planning is not spent contributing positively to the city.  

Yes, the council committed a crime against the people of Berkeley by allowing a renegade planner to abuse the citizens of this town for ten years, although the ratio of negligence to complicity on the council is hotly debated. And senior planning staff were also happy to let Rhoades do the work and take the heat. But regardless of the winks and nods that come from above, adult human beings and public servants are responsible for their own integrity. Let history provide a lesson:  

In 2001, a Southside institution wanted to build a six-story building with two floors of UC Extension classrooms in our residential neighborhood. Naturally Rhoades supported this with his full bag of tricks. When it came to light that this new building would be a huge expansion of an illegal use, within a history of illegal uses, Rhoades spontaneously invented a little piece of “law” to persuade the ZAB to ignore the illegalities, and continued to support the project vigorously. Eventually Rhoades’ little crusade was ended by the council, the legal staff, and Dan Marks—after Rhoades had made losers of everyone: the institution he misled, the neighborhood he betrayed, and the taxpayers who paid for it all.  

Compare this with the actions of the zoning officer who held Mr. Rhoades’ position from 1962 to 1982, Robert Humphrey. Mr. Humphrey respected and protected the community. On the several occasions over the decades when Humphrey became aware of similar (but smaller) violations by the institution in question, he forced the institution back into compliance with its approved use. He administered the law; he did not make it, flout it, or ignore it to suit his personal goals.  

The baseline for ethical public service is to work for the people and implement the law. Planners like Mark Rhoades give us less under pretense of giving us more. Berkeley should not tolerate it.  

Ms. O’Malley is correct: Rhoades is more a symbol than a cause of what is wrong with Berkeley city government. But we must look not only at how systems shape individuals, but at how individuals shape systems. The bottom line is that the big developers toasted Rhoades, while hundreds of regular citizens just like the readers of this newspaper were irreparably damaged by him, while being forced to pay his salary. That sums up both the man and the system. 

South campus resident Sharon Hudson is an advocate for improving urban quality of life.

Is there such a thing as optimistic fatalism? I’m talking about artists in Berkeley, of course. Here are some observations that occur to me: Of course, nobody who is upstanding should be brutalized by a civil process into quitting their residence or business place—we all ought to demand civility and generosity towards artists in those proceedings and transactions which increasingly force them to relocate out of town. It is a sad period of time in the history of Berkeley. 

Yet, let’s face it: property values are neither random nor irrelevant. Development potential is not something invented in City Hall—it is a natural phenomenon which the city can only moderate, not halt. Let us dispassionately contemplate, just for a moment, the taboo thought: that “tomorrow” all artists in Berkeley find themselves sufficiently square deals and quit the town, migrating to Oakland, Richmond, Emeryville, even Walnut Creek and Union City. What will come of this deep disruption of a long-standing and much appreciated element of our social fabric, here in Berkeley? 

My hunch comes in two parts: the immediate consequences and the long term consequences. Immediately, I suppose, we will all (and the artists themselves, most of all) experience tremendous loss. The social networks that are the Berkeley artists’ social scene will be “stretched out” over a larger geography. Ties will be broken and generally patterns that have been vibrant will fade. Yet, longer term... what happens after that? 

I think that, longer term, Berkeley will benefit and become even more of a cultural hub than it already is—at least if we play the zoning game and development game well. There are two reasons: 1) enriching your neighbor enriches you; 2) Berkeley can have a thriving arts scene even with a scarcity of workspaces for artists. “Enriching your neighbor” means that as artists are pushed out of Berkeley into neighboring communities, they help begin to “infect” those neighbors with some of the best aspects of Berkeley culture. A slight dispersal of artists greatly expands the number of people here in the 510 region who have ready access to artists. Culturally speaking, if we set aside our city pride for a moment, in pushing out more and more artists we are also, in some sense, sending out our cultural diplomats. What if these seeds take root? Then Berkeley will find itself surrounded, on all sides, by culturally enriched neighbors. We will be lucky to have such problems! 

The second point, that “Berkeley can have a thriving arts scene even with a scarcity of workspaces,” is trickier. I suggest that, given the extreme development pressure, we pick something to focus on, culturally. We are forced away from being the sleepy bayside town, in contrast to the surrounding metropolis, where artists can find cheap rent and a bohemian lifestyle is guaranteed for all. Sad but true. So, as a new focus: Berkeley should focus on being a place of cultural consumption. That is to say, we should focus on fashioning our town as the “artists market,” much as their farmer’s markets or dock-side fish markets. Some specific suggestions might help clarify this idea: 

Yes, Berkeley zoning should ensure that, in perpetuity, there are artist studio spaces available here below “market rates” for adjacent property. Such artificially priced spaces are our cultural “commons,” where we hope that pretty and useful things will grow. But, civilly, if we are talking about manipulating prices, the question arises: how do we fairly, justly allocate these community resources? 

Enter the “consumption oriented” view: Bless any artist who can make a permanent home base in Berkeley but, in our zoning, let’s not try to make home bases for artists. Rather, how about studio spaces that can be rented, below market rates, but only for a maximum of a few years at a time and only on the condition of maintaining a public part of the space, where people can observe (and ideally participate in) art being produced? 

Cynically you could call this “zookeeping of artists” or optimistically it could be an element of Berkeley-as-culutural-marketplace. Consumers and producers alike travel to a market place—the producers usually produce elsewhere. Berkeley’s geography and “research center” economics suggest it is bound to become more marketplace than production site. Our civic policy should reflect that. 

Thomas Lord is a Berkeley resident.

A closely-spaced motorcade of double-size Van Hool buses now trundles up and down Telegraph Avenue at all hours. I regularly observe the middle and Berkeley end of Bus Line No. 1 doing business on Telegraph and occasionally getting paint at Kelley-Moore at Telegraph and 42nd. Morning, noon, and night, I see an average range of six to 16 passengers occupying these cavernous vehicles. Telegraph Avenue in Oakland is in poor condition already. The greatest damage to city streets is done by buses, according to the paving engineer hired by City of Berkeley that I spoke to when North Shattuck Avenue was last repaved. And we all see how little budget there seems to be for street maintenance and repair in Berkeley and Oakland. Considering how much fuel is being consumed to deploy so many heavy buses to move so few passengers, BRT deserves a good deal more before-the-fact public disclosure and scrutiny than it has received.  

Listening to public input is not an AC Transit forté. The public agency is determinedly deaf to shouts of dismay from citizens who don’t want Telegraph to become any harder to negotiate than it already is. As much so as when both the riding public and bus drivers strongly criticized the elimination of bus lines in Oakland, and the use of more Van Hool buses. Top management “stayed the course” by moving ahead with reduction of services to areas that had no other transit service, and what has been called a sweetheart contract with the Belgian bus manufacturer. Today, as it touts its Telegraph Avenue project, AC Transit is removing bus stops elsewhere. 

Fran Haselsteiner wants us to know that BRT has been “fully vetted” by the public. But the many voices raised in opposition to this plan today suggest that “fully vetted” means something less than “exhibited to all in full public view.” Much like other schemes that affect hundreds of thousands of people—the aborted land grab at the Ashby BART and the stalled land grab at North Shattuck Avenue come to mind—BRT has suddenly emerged full-blown after the tritest gesture to public process. Now Fran urges us to sample the bliss from assurances by architects of this scheme that 9,300 new riders “may” accrue from its implementation. This bit of prefabricated spin—quintessetial pie-in-the-sky—misses the mark among level-headed Berkeley and Oakland citizens who oppose BRT. 

Here’s what bugs me about BRT: 1) It is grossly wasteful and destructive to our infrastructure, as described above. 2) AC Transit does not own Telegraph Avenue and has no right to push everyone who uses the street into one lane. Neither does Berkeley or Oakland. Telegraph was constructed and is maintained (!) with citizens’ money; the citizens own it. 2) Depriving the citizenry of full use of their street flies in the face of democratic principle and process. I choose to ride my bicycle for 80 percent of my transit needs. As a property manager I drive my car on Telegraph to obtain paint and supplies in Oakland. I don’t need AC Transit or Fran to “discourage” me by making the experience even more unpleasant and time-consuming (and thereby more gas-consuming) than it already is.  

If AC Transit is after more riders, let’s start by admitting that pre-BRT capacity is more than adequate for the foreseeable future. How about asking for state and federal transit money to offer low-cost or free bus service instead of clogging up our main intercity artery? There is already BART between the two cities. Restore bus service to some neighborhoods. That will increase ridership for sure, not ‘maybe’. 

BRT looks like a high-visibility bid for state and federal funds. The more insistently its spokespeople attempt to refute the obvious disadvantages of this plan, the more I wonder how much money is involved and where it is intended to go. 

Glen Kohler lives in Berkeley’s South Campus area. 

There is no “normal” left in Berkeley. Lethargy, a surfeit of political correctness, and confusion of common sense have led to its demise. I spend less time than I used to in community activism. It is not that the issues that plague South Berkeley have diminished in any way. My resignation comes from recognition that there are more individuals committed to defeating “normal” than I can battle. Conditions have changed little in the 11 years I’ve lived in Berkeley. The players change on both sides of the law, but the challenges remain. The dangers posed by the out-of-control illegal drug trade are still here. Shootouts are still commonplace in Beat 12. The focus of criminal activity in and around 1610 Oregon St. bleeds out—often literally—onto satellite sites, including other houses on the 1600 block Oregon Street; McGee Street (especially the four corners and the intersection of Oregon/McGee); the 1500 block of Oregon Street, with daily drug sales at the corner of Oregon/Sacramento and the apartments on the other side of Oregon; gunfire exchanges with residents of the Rosewood Apartments, on Russell and Oregon Street habitués; and now excursions onto Stuart Street as well.  

We are expected to accept that the car stolen by a thief in San Francisco, and abandoned in our neighborhood, was coincidental. We are told that it is coincidental that another stolen car, driven by two serial robbers in Oakland, was driven to the house across the street from 1610 Oregon by mere accident. It was likewise sheer coincidence that the female robber ran straight into a nearby house and stripped naked, jumping into the bathtub to escape capture by both Oakland and Berkeley police. Right. All just our version of “normal” here in South Berkeley. 

In the interests of full disclosure, my family has suffered less than many others. Let’s see…since I moved to Berkeley, we once had a rapist scale the back fence behind our yard, running from the police. He was captured, so I’m not sure if that counts. Another time, a man racing around the block crashed his car into the side of 1700 Oregon, and took off on foot. His escape route led through our yard as well. I have had a rose bush out front yanked out of the ground. Twice, individuals associated with the Moore household (1610 Oregon St.) tried to run me down with cars. A death threat was made against me, the very evening of the day I testified against local drug dealers in court. Worst of all, my son was attacked, along with a school friend, when the two boys walked down to the corner store for ice cream. It was an attempted robbery, and they managed to get away with a minor beating, but traumatic nonetheless. It destroyed whatever small hope I harbored that my son could grow up in normalcy. 

As I write this I am out of the area, visiting my elderly father and only sibling. They live in a (relatively) safe and (relatively) quiet neighborhood, with what I consider to be normal expectations of public safety. As many will tell you—and do—bad things happen to people everywhere, so Berkeley is no exception. That is true, as far as it goes, but there the similarities stop. In my dad’s community, neighbors have reasonable expectations of acceptable social conduct from everyone, and they don’t go out of their way to make excuses or exceptions for anyone. Further, they expect their law enforcement officers to behave like police officers, not like social workers. Last but not least, they expect their city government officials, and judicial agents, to prosecute the law as written, fairly and even-handedly for all. Berkeley residents could only WISH to experience that level of normal. We in Berkeley are left, out on our own, for most operative public safety needs. 

This disparity, in my opinion, comes from diminished expectations of support from city leaders. That condition comes direct from explicit admonitions from certain individuals, like Captain William Pittman telling neighbors at a ROC meeting that police involvement would only extend for two weeks, following a series of shooting events in our Beat. Beyond that? Captain Pittman answered, “Afterwards then, you are on your own.” Great. Or when a neighbor complained to Maudelle Shirek about the frequency of violence in our district, and asked what she should do, Ms. Shirek answered, “I think you should move.” This, from our elected city councilmember. Another pernicious element in eroding public confidence in city leadership, was the chronic undercharging by the COB district attorney’s office. Crimes that would have been presented to the courts as serious felonies were dismissed outright, or charged as minor crimes only. Not only was this a very demoralizing factor, but it led to a constant revolving door of criminals shunted back onto our streets. 

Neighbors in my father’s neighborhood speak with each other first, and civilly, if they have a dispute. If that is unsuccessful in resolving the problem, they rely on law enforcement and other city officials for assistance. They don’t stab their boyfriend in the back of the head over a small domestic squabble. They don’t pour Roundup over a neighbor’s 20-year-old planting and kill it, when they don’t agree with the owner’s politics. They don’t train their pit bulls to fight, and attack anyone who comes on their property. They don’t turn a blind eye to drug dealing by minors, and sponsor violence in the neighborhood. They don’t throw a molotov cocktail at the front of a neighbor’s house, setting their fence on fire, as retaliation for the administration of a legal judgment (against drug dealers in the neighborhood). Retaliation is not an acceptable method of resolving one’s dispute. Period. 

In Berkeley, by contrast, many of the residents have given up hope. They tolerate the intolerable; they accept the unacceptable. The children are the worst casualties of this deplorable atmosphere, being forced to grow up with the constant fear of unprovoked attack. One of these youth is celebrating his 21st birthday today. He was attacked as a young teen for the unthinkable crime of electing to leave a pickup ball game in the park nearby, when some of the players got too rough for a friendly game of pickup football. He was beaten into a coma, and was fortunate to survive with no lasting injury. His younger brother was jumped and beaten twice now already, both in the commission of a robbery. He was badly injured, but has survived with only the emotional scars. Only the emotional scars…as if they were not enough. 

Excuses made for (what I consider) actionable neglect by the City of Berkeley, to keep residents safe, fall into three categories. First, and most general, is the dismissive attitude that tells us that our problems aren’t really all that bad, and that it “happens everywhere.” If that one-size-fits-all excuse fails to dissuade critics, the second-tier defense is “aim to shame.” A finger-wagging lecture is delivered telling us how we need to “make allowances, exceptions” for the poor and underprivileged. The unspoken assumption seems to be that, if we are on the sunny side of the law, then we must be endowed with an over-abundance of privilege and resources. It’s a total crock of bologna, of course; I guarantee you I am poorer than most (if not all) of the drug dealers who habituate my neighborhood. If that excuse falls flat as well, then the be all/end all argument is pulled out of the drawer. Claims of racist callousness are leveled at the victims, in an effort to cut short any and all criticism. It usually works, too, although not by its own virtue. 

And if normalcy in Berkeley is dead and gone, for all and for good, who does one blame? I hold Councilmember Max Anderson and his predecessor, Maudelle Shirek, directly responsible by virtue of their hostility and outright opposition to community concerns. The elected city representative of District 3 ought to be the person we turn to for help. Instead, they have wielded a cynical, negative influence against true remediation of community problems. During her tenure with the City Council, Maudelle Shirek was almost entirely absent. She only came to one community meeting (of the ROC group) once, and lectured us about our responsibilities to other people’s children then. That one visit, and a more visible presence during the last election, were the only times she was in our neighborhood. No, I take that back. Ms. Shirek was seen visiting with Lenora Moore, owner of the worst drug house in our neighborhood, and her long-time friend. And we wonder how that residence is still in operation, with 30 years worth of criminal activity. 

Max Anderson was elected to City Council with the full support, and full coffers, of well-connected friends. He outspent rival Laura Menard 10-to-1 in the campaign. Once elected, he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with anyone who couldn’t be counted as an unquestioning supporter. Max Anderson has avoided open exchanges with his constituents, and has shown blatant neglect of the issues of concern to us. His voice, when forced to interact with us, has been one of a bigot and a bully. We have no representation in South Berkeley. Not in our neighborhoods. Not in Beat 12. Not in District 3. Not in our city. 

And without effective representation, there is no “normal.” 

Sam Herbert is a South Berkeley resident.

Long-time peace activist Brian Willson became an international symbol of nonviolent resistance when he was run over by a train carrying weapons to Central America at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, near Concord, California, on Sept. 1, 1987. Brian miraculously survived, but lost both his legs and received a severe head injury. A subsequent investigation revealed that the government train was speeding, that the military drivers could see him for over 650 feet, and that they never applied the brakes as the train ran over him. He had been sitting on the tracks in a widely publicized protest against U.S. military intervention in Central America.” (Excerpt from The Road to Transformation: A Conversation with Brian Willson, by John Dear). 

From this tragedy the small group of veterans, peace activists and pastors who called themselves Nuremberg Actions were joined by peace activists from around the world. 

In the time that followed, many of us came to the weapons station to take part in a 24-hour vigil that lasted for over three years, blocking every weapons train that attempted to pass, in an extraordinary action that was recognized around the world. Many came to live on the small stretch of railroad track that a court order allowed us to maintain, for a week, a month or a year, or just for the night. Others felt compelled to come once a week or once a month to share in the community, drawn by the spiritual energy left by the thousands who came to witness in those years, including Wavy Gravy, Martin Sheen, Daniel Elsberg and Jessie Jackson, as well as other religious leaders from around the world. From churches and peace centers in San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Mendocino and many other communities, so many peacemakers regularly made the difficult pilgrimage out to the other side of Concord. I had the opportunity to live on those tracks for a year as the media coordinator for Nuremberg Actions, one of the most profound experiences of my life.  

Sept. 1 marks the 20th anniversary of the assault on Brian that woke up the world to what was happening at the Concord Naval Weapons Station and the role that Nuremberg Actions would play in the long term witness of the weapons being shipped to Central America and other places. 

Brian Willson, David Hartsough, Ken Butigan, Greg Getty and I welcome any of you able to join us on Sept. 1 at that sacred spot from 10 a.m. to noon to remember, reflect and re-affirm our commitment to peace and justice. No program per say, just a typical circle at the tracks with music and friends, hugs and reflections, and a chance for old friends to catch up on where our lives have gone these past 20 years. For more information, write to NurembergReunion@comcast.net 

Mark Coplan is currently the public information officer for the Berkeley Unified School District. 

• 

A LOCAL JEWEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Berkeley Art Center is an undervisited jewel. This tiny , beautiful building astrides a creek just east of Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St., 644-6893, www.berkeleyartcenter.org. It feaures changing exhibits of local artisits and other themes of interest to the community exquisitely displayed. The site is serene and beautiful.  

Ruth Bird 

• 

END OF THE PIER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Proceed to the foot of University Avenue and over the viaduct. Continue straight (except for the bend) down Marina Boulevard to its end and park. Walk to the end of the pier. 

You will find yourself in the middle of a sphere, whose equator consists of buildings, bridges, ships, peaks, and ranges, even lights. 

This is best done late in the day, although pre-breakfast is cool, too. 

Phil Allen 

OBAMA IS NOT READY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I usually admire and agree with Becky O’Malley’s editorials, but this time I could not disagree more. Obama may be very attractive by his youth and forcefulness but he is immature and not prepared for such an important job as the presidency. He seems like a young dog on the attack and lumping the Bushes and Clintons together was ridiculous. When he raised the possibility of sending troops to Pakistan, it raised the specter of another endless Iraq war, totally antagonizing the Muslim world when diplomacy and helping their economy can do more good. Obama needs to grow up. 

There are a lot of very good candidates running. My favorite is John Edwards, who is totally intent on helping the poor and starting a comprehensive health care plan in this country. I believe he would also make a good diplomat and might be able to repair the horrible damage that has been done by this presidency. Let us make friends, not war. 

Andree Leenaers 

• 

TELEGRAPH WOES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Judith Scherr, in her Aug. 17 article, has finally punctured the inflated myth that there is anything at all wrong with Telegraph Avenue that can be blamed on the poor. Bravo! And please issue her some Kevlar. 

Carol Denney 

• 

ANONYMOUS CALLER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

An anonymous caller to the Daily Planet, who claims to be a frequent reader of the paper, left a charming message accusing me of liberal hypocrisy based on his notion that I haven’t drawn a cartoon about Rent Board Member Chris Kavanagh’s questionable Berkeley residency. The man’s theory is that I don’t criticize leftist people or causes, and that I—and others who fall into his broad category of “liberals”—only see what we want to see. 

I would refer the misinformed caller to the Aug. 14 issue of the Daily Planet, which included precisely the cartoon he accuses me of avoiding, regarding Kavanagh’s legal and ethical hedging. I would also refer the caller to the dozen or so cartoons I drew about the Berkeley mayoral election, which included criticisms of Mayor Bates and all his challengers, each one of whom would certainly identify themselves as left of Bates. He might also check out the many cartoons in which I have pointed out the hypocrisy, timidity and lack of vision of the Democrats in Congress over the past seven years. This is just to get him started. Other examples may be found at www.jfdefreitas.com. 

While I certainly skew left in my politics, the primary subject matter for political cartoonists is the hypocrisy, cowardice, inflated egos, and general wrong-headedness of politicos of all stripes. And while there is certainly no shortage of material in local, state or federal government, I am always eager for more. Thus I strongly urge the caller to seek public office.  

Justin DeFreitas 

Daily Planet Editorial Cartoonist 

• 

YOUTH COMMUNITY WALK  

IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

With its second walk, 50 percent more South and West Berkeley youth walked to protest violence, reclaimed their neighborhoods, cleaned up and noted needed changes. What a model youth have set for Berkeley’s adults!  

Led by Berkeley United Youth in Action (BUYA) and Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action (BOCA), walk participants began building a better community and changing mistaken perceptions about youth. Isn’t it amazing how much difference a walk makes? It would be great to have Youth Community Walk continue as a regular event, documenting ongoing community change.  

Walk&Roll Berkeley congratulates everyone involved in this effort. If your youth organization, neighborhood association, church group, child care, senior, community center or other group would like to organize walks or learn more about walkable communities, contact Walk&Roll Berkeley at 883-9725 or e-mail wrb@americawalks.org . 

Wendy Alfsen  

Coordinator, Walk&Roll Berkeley 

• 

STUDENTS ON  

CITY COMMISSIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One of our city councilmembers thinks it is a good idea to appoint lots of students to city commissions. Your recent article states that he has 10 current student appointees (out of around 40 total).  

At a recent fundraiser in Omaha, Nebraska, Sen. Obama said, “When people say they are looking for experience, what they really mean is judgment. The assumption is experience is a proxy for judgment and in some cases it is...” but, because he has less experience than his competition, he went on to address exceptions to that assumption and gave examples of people who had lots of experience and no judgment, e.g., Dick Cheney. His general statement is easy to agree with. I know that what I want above all in elected officials (and appointed commissioners) is good judgment and good thinking, and yes I assume that usually, although not always, good judgment goes with experience.  

If we can agree that it is desirable for councilmembers to appoint persons who have good judgment to our boards and commissions, what is the best way for a councilmember to accomplish that? Does it include deliberately de-selecting people with experience in the interest of “diversity”? Or is it possible that it might not be good judgment to hand over a significant portion of the appointments in our city’s policy advisory bodies to inexperienced students just because they are students? 

Can we not simply observe the obvious about why this particular councilmember appoints lots of students? His district is composed primarily of students, and students elected him. For him to proselytize his appointment criteria as having a broader significance for the cause of human rights in Berkeley, putting it in the same league with issues of race and racism, is disingenuous. On the other hand, I suppose it is possible that he could instead be one of those exceptions that Sen. Obama referred to as having lots of experience and no judgment. 

Dennis White  

• 

FLUORIDE IN THE WATER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have received several phone calls from folks responding to my letter to the editor regarding fluoride in water. For those of you who would like more information about fluoride, you can contact a local holistic health group: Health Medicine Center, 3799 Mt. Diablo Blvd. (adjacent to Lafayette Reservoir), Lafayette CA 94549. (925) 962-3799. 

These folks put on regular Health Forums, and recently did a series of these on fluoride. 

Also, there is an organization called Protect Our Water Alliance, who is concerned about the problems with fluoridation. They can be reached at www.powalliance.org Protect Our Water is circulating a petition to Congress, asking them to re-consider the mandatory fluoridation of our water. 

Yolanda Huang 

• 

GREEN PARTY CANDIDATES 

SHUT OUT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Green Party candidates are being systematically shut out of debates all over the country. When this happens, democracy loses. Voters have a right to know which candidate best represents their values. When debate sponsors bar candidates, they violate this right. Recent polls show that the majority of Americans believe the war in Iraq was wrong and want to bring our troops home now. The majority of Americans support the right for everyone to have healthcare, living wages, and renewable energy choices. Americans are disgusted by the influence of corporations in politics and want a change to politics as usual. Democratic and Republican candidates all across the United States take millions in corporate campaign contributions. The public has a right to hear from candidates from the Green Party who represent We the People over big business interest. Please get the word out there so we as Americans can make a change for the better. Will the Daily Planet do this for us? For the people, show the truth on the Green Party and how they are fighting for the people unlike our Republicans and Democrats who only hold the values of the big corporations that support their pocket book. We need change in 2008, we need a better way for Americans we need to break the boundaries that have been holding us back. If the media don’t show the truth then what good are the media ?  

Robert Gapen 

• 

RESPONSE REGARDING  

STICKY SIDEWALKS ON  

UNIVERSITY AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s the damn trees! They attract aphids who secrete the goo. If only the city would replace these trees with a more suitable street tree, not only would the sidewalks not stick to our shoes but the buildings next to the trees would not have the black rain on them and their windows, and cars parked beneath would not drive away with nearly unremovable spots. Also, it is not just University. Try walking down Addison some time and then tracking the goo and the leaves stuck to the bottom of your foot into the house. It is an unpleasant experience all the way around. 

Constance Wiggins 

• 

LAB PROJECTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We have until Aug. 24 to submit written comments for the draft environmental impact report on two gigantic new Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects 

• Helios Energy Research Facility for biofuel research with BP, including 160,000-square-foot building, access road, and parking lot. 

• Computational Research and Theory Facility, including a 150,000-square-foot facility for computer and offices, plus access roads. 

These projects planned for Strawberry Canyon are next to and associated with the six-story Nanotech “Molecular Foundry.” This frightening project was slipped in without City Council requesting an EIR, under the “improved university relations” of a Mayor Bates majority. The new projects are two of approximately 15 huge buildings LBNL would like to build in Strawberry Canyon. These developments would include deforestation and paving acres of Canyon land, and yet are being called “Green” by LBNL. The area is still contaminated from previous Lab/DOE projects, is crisscrossed with earthquake fault zones, and is at risk of fire and landslide.The Canyon contains an aquifer with pristine waters. 

If you send your comments as questions, that will ensure they are answered. (And saves time!) 

For some terrific articles on this subject: 

• See Richard Brenneman’s Daily Planet headline article covering the lively public Scoping Session for this project (Aug. 10), and his other articles on LRDP, biofuels research, BP, UC dumping toxics in Richmond. View on line. 

• Relevant Contra Costa Times articles on line: Lab workers suffer fallout (July 1) quoting former Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore Lab employees who have become very sick and are trying to get federal compensation for illness. For the photos and stories, go to ContraCostaTimes.com. Also see CC Times “Reconsidering Nuclear Power” (July 5) quotes UCB Labs Director Dr. Steven Chu saying that “nuclear power must be considered.” 

Written comments may be sent by regular mail or e-mail to: Jeff Philliber, Environmental Planning Coordinator,  

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, MS 90J-0120, Berkeley, CA 94720. 

Merrilie Mitchell  

• 

2507 McGEE AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a tenant of Dr. Rash B. Ghosh, I am distressed to hear of the City of Berkeley’s misguided requirements to make expensive structural changes and to coerce the owner of the building at 2507 McGee Ave. The city planners should be embarrassed by this debacle. 

A full year and a half late, construction completed in March 1998, and under the dubious guidance of Mark Rhoades, the approval for the construction was arbitrarily reversed in a meeting where Dr. Ghosh was unable to attend. The City of Berkeley continues with its plans to give the building to the developer, Ali Kashani, Mr. Rhoades’ future employer. Does this debate not reek of the profiteering pursued by our current president’s legislation? I ask the members of the Berkeley City Council, are you no better than the president whom you have voted to impeach? This action is a shameful performance of coercion of an outstanding citizen, shame on you. 

Dr. Ghosh took over this building in 1991 and has worked consistently to improve it according to the city’s direction. This was built in 1992 with a separate building permit approved by the inspector, Mr. Robert Kandel. His plans were approved by city zoning and building for construction which was duly executed. In a March 4 e-mail, Bill Coburn, the architect for the project since 2000, writes, “During the time I have worked on this project all effort has been put onto the third floor excluding the eastern portion of the third floor.” Now Assistant City Attorney Zach Cowan wants to remove the eastern portion of the roof which has existed for fifteen years! 

I have now been a tenant of Dr. Ghosh for many months and assure you that this building is in an excellent state of repair. That said, and with the architect’s instance that the construction was done in accord with court orders, how can this debate still continue? 

Dr. Rash B. Ghosh is an unselfish scientist and constructive citizen, a kind neighbor, and a compassionate landlord. He is the founder of the International Institute of the Bengal Basin, a non-profit organization that is strongly supported and advised by three Nobel Laureates, Linus Pawling, Glenn T. Seaborg, and Charles Townes. For his many years of good works to our world and community, including housing low income and senior citizens of Berkeley, is this how we thank him? Do we reward a man who is an advocate for the comfort and well-being of Berkeley tenants by taking away his home? This cannot be your solution. Please reconsider this outrageous issue and come to a more responsible solution. 

Steven Wilson 

• 

MARK RHOADES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is about time Berkeley residents knew more about Planning and Development Director Mark Rhoades, who resigned his $133,000-per-year job on Aug. 10. Some city staff told the Planet that Rhoades might work for developer Ali Kashani, who affirms that possibility. 

We are tenants at 2507 McGee Ave. in Berkeley, a property Mr. Rhoades wanted to put in receivership. Who is the proposed receiver for our home? Ali Kashani. 

But we aren’t the only people who know Rhoades’ methods. The Planet quotes Sharon Hudson: “Under the cover of public service, Rhoades skillfully manipulated rules to benefit favored developers, and destroyed trust between Berkeley residents and their government.” Councilmember Dona Spring asked whether a Planning staff member [How about the director?] “should be such a strong advocate for one aspect of development ...” Planner Steve Wollmer: “Rhoades did much to damage the City, and now will be on the other side.” 

We who live at 2507 McGee Ave. know. Mr. Rhoades has affected our lives badly. Dr. Rash B. Ghosh, the founder of a non-profit at this address, and the owner of the property, bought it in 1991 when it was blighted, and with city encouragement, began at once to remedy its greatly deferred maintenance. He got proper permits, did the work exactly as specified, and city inspectors approved and signed for the completed work—such as reinforcing an earthquake-weakened foundation, and re-roofed the building. Several years later, the city decided, “We should not have issued those permits,” and made demands that Dr. Ghosh undo needed repairs he had made. 

Rhoades took the issue to Municipal Court, where Commissioner John Rantzmann, on hearing city staff admit their errors, created a settlement offer. But Rhoades rejected it, and the case was dismissed. But then Rhoades took the matter to City Council, and held hearings when the building owner was out of the country. He persuaded City Council to declare the property “a public nuisance.” Rhoades also urged the council to insist on expensive changes back to the property’s former structure (including to its weak, original, city-rejected foundation). City staff said they knew Dr. Ghosh couldn’t afford those (unnecessary) changes. But Rhoades insisted the property go into receivership otherwise. 

Now, although Dr. Gosh has received condo conversion approval, Rhoades still pushed for the same pointless changes, or that the building be put into receivership. Rhoades’ developer buddy Ali Kashani is his first choice of receiver, despite that the Institute—a non-profit—holds one mortgage and has compete ability to be the receiver, if one is needed. Meanwhile, we stand to lose our homes and work at the non-profit International Institute of the Bengal Basin, which does much to help the ecology of the United States and Asia. 

What a legacy Mr. Rhoades leaves! We hope it will be reversed, and soon, before we lose everything, for no one’s gain but a developer’s. 

Megan C. Timberlake 

• 

BUS TRIP PLANNING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Being a dedicated Berkeley bus rider, I’d like to offer some transit-oriented help to Zelda Bronstein (The Public Eye, Aug. 10). First, bus line 43 in her neighborhood is now called line 18. AC Transit inundated the buses with fliers explaining this and the other June changes well before the changes were made. I’ll admit that even somebody like me thought that too much was changed at one time. Regular riders of the changed lines probably adapted quickly, but it was certainly confusing for people who don’t ride the buses frequently. I make it my business to keep current about riding the Berkeley buses. I don’t look down on people without a high level of this urban skill. Other people have complained to me about the menu-driven run-around one gets on the phone or on the website. Personally, I never have used the phone to get bus information. I do use the Web, but I go for the MTC’s “Trip Planner.” 

The Trip Planner accepts a starting and ending street address (always give “st,” “ave,” “blvd,” etc.) and generates a list of buses and times to do the trip. A little thoughtfulness and common sense are required, because like all software, the planner sometimes comes up with absurd solutions. I can usually use the Planner find out which bus serves my destination, then call up the bus schedule if I am unhappy with the details the planner gives me. I don’t think transit patrons should depend on any of AC Transit’s information systems for regular bus riding. It’s much more comfortable to know the system – which buses go where for what you need. This skill can be quickly acquired with a little practice and patience. I’ve got to the point where I know how to get anywhere in Berkeley on a bus, where to catch those buses and about how often they run. I don’t carry bus schedules at all—nor do I know the detailed schedules of most buses. As a public service, and because I think it’s a fun challenge, I’m willing to help anyone figure out bus transportation anywhere in Berkeley, Albany, North Oakland, or El Cerrito. I’ll even try dealing with any other part of the Bay Area. Just send an e-mail to stgeller@comcast.net. No charge. No menu. 

Steve Geller 

• 

GUNS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Obviously, I believe that my opinion that guns are properly used in self-defense correlates with the facts. I would only be dishonest if I gave an opinion that I knew to be untrue. Which makes no sense. I never wrote that Clear was dishonest, only wrong. Clear’s assertion that people without guns are more likely to walk away is meaningless. How would he know? If more would-be robbers were deterred by guns that would be great rather than just reading about more victims in your Police Blotter. By the way, I’ve known a number of people who lived in Switzerland and they tell me that gun ownership there is widespread contrary to James Sayre. If there’s one book that can shed light here it’s More Guns, Less Crime by John R. Lott.  

It is a better venue for exploring the issue in depth than brief letters. 

Michael P. Hardesty 

Oakland 

P.S.: Would someone tell Mr. Clear that Trader Joe’s, Wholesale Outlet and Berkeley Bowl ARE supermarkets? 

• 

A FEW FACTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The discussion about guns continues, and some writers have mentioned the importance of stating facts as opposed to opinion. Here are some facts and their sources: (1) Fifteen national polls, including those organized by Gallup/L.A. Times, imply that there are 760,000 to 3.6 million defensive uses of any type of gun per year (p. 11, from More Guns Less Crime by John R. Lott, Jr: a valuable in-depth statistical study of the correlation between crime and gun control laws). (2) Some 98 percent of the time armed citizens merely have to brandish their gun to stop an attack. Contrary to popular belief, criminals take the gun away from the victim in less than 1% of such confrontations (p. 240, Guns and Violence, The English Experience, by Joyce Lee Malcolm). (3) In England, guns have been all but banned. Between 1989 and 1995, violent crime in England soared 500 percent. Since 1995, English rates of violent crime have been higher than American rates (p. 225, ibid.). Robberies in England and Wales were 1.4 times higher than in America and far more likely to take place while the residents were at home (p.165, ibid.). (4) The rate of violent crimes was found to be 81 percent lower in U.S. states with laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons (p. 428, ibid.). (5) 36 U.S. states presently have “shall issue” concealed carry laws which allow anyone who can legally own a gun to obtain a concealed carry permit. (This is an especially important point for those taking a position against concealed carry to consider. The argument often is, that if we allow people to carry concealed, loaded firearms, there’ll be a bloodbath. In the 36 states where this HAS been allowed, there has been NO bloodbath. In Florida, for instance, only “one fifth of one percent of concealed carry permit holders had their permits revoked” (p.76 Shooting Straight by Wayne LaPierre). It should be noted that, as is the case in Nevada, CCW permits can be revoked for reasons not having to do with use of firearms. Getting a DUI will cause a revocation of a CCW. (6) Within a few weeks when my papers arrive, I will have permits to carry concealed weapons in 31 states, and if I chose could get permits to carry in the other 5. Some people in rural counties can obtain permits to carry in California (and these allow carry throughout the state), but urban counties such as Alameda are notorious for denying residents such permits. Does it make sense that in 36 states I can legally carry a loaded gun on my person most everywhere I go, but that I cannot do so in my own state?  

The above facts have to do with self-defense from criminal acts. Our founding fathers also had the concern that the people be armed so that they could defend themselves from an oppressive government, which is what they had just experienced. Aaron Zelman, who heads the organization Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, stated, based on his research in the book Death by Gun Control: “Gun control laws cleared the way for 7 major genocides between 1915 and 1980.”  

Facts are important. In an anti-gun climate as we have in the Bay Area, those advocating gun control can readily find support when they make statements or pass gun control laws that have no foundation in facts. It is important to look at whole patterns, statistical studies, and not simply form an opinion based on a fear or prejudice that one has. That Chauncey Bailey could not have saved his life if he’d been armed does not mean that no one who is armed can defend their lives. (See the book Thank God I Had a Gun by Chris Bird, which gives several examples of people who saved their lives because they were armed.) Blown Away by Caitlin Kelly is a good book that presents both sides of the gun debate.  

Deborah Cloudwalker 

Oakland 

• 

LETTER TO THE  

CITY ATTORNEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please print this letter that we mailed to the city attorney. 

Dear Ms. Albuquerque, 

We are puzzled that we received a response from the city clerk (copy enclosed) to our July 15 letter addressed to the mayor and City Councilmembers; Subject: July 17, 2007, Meeting Violated the Brown Act, Council Procedures, a copy of which was received in your office. 

We were surprised that the city clerk offered legal opinions in her letter and would appreciate your informing us if you concur. 

Our letter pointed out that the 20-minute presentation by an EBMUD director at the July 17 council meeting was not listed on the agenda. The Brown Act requires that all matters to come before a legislative body’s meeting must be included in the meeting’s agenda and posted 72 hours before the meeting. Allowing a presentation not listed on the agenda not only violated the Brown Act, but the Council’s own Rules of Procedure and Order which state “any request for a presentation to the Council will be submitted as an agenda item and follow the timelines for submittal of agenda reports” (Section III Agenda C.4. Scheduling a Presentation, Resolution 63,690-N.S.) 

The city clerk states the mayor introduced this 20-minute presentation on a potential water shortage as a ceremonial item, and therefore agenda listing was not required. A presentation by any name is still a presentation! Calling it by another name does not excuse non-compliance with the law.  

Our letter also brought to the attention of the City Council that correspondence received by councilmembers, and referred to by a speaker at the Public Hearing on the B Town Dollar Store, was requested at the meeting by an audience member. The requester was told that the letter was only available “on-line.” This also violated the Brown Act (Gov. Code 54957.5), which states “…writings, when distributed to a legislative body…by any person in connection with a matter subject to…consideration at a public meeting of the body… shall be made available on request without delay.” The city clerk’s response, that there was a copy of the letter in a supplemental packet in the viewing binder in Council Chambers and a copy in the lobby which someone may have removed, neither justifies the answer given to the requester, nor meets the requirements of the law. Ample copies of supplemental agenda packets should be available to the public, and, if they run out and requests are made for more, a clerk directed to make additional copies. 

We reiterate our expectation, spelled out in our July 25 letter, that these violations of the Brown Act be cured and corrected by the council through rescinding the actions taken on July 17, the meeting having been held in violation of open meeting laws, and a meeting be rescheduled to revisit the items on that agenda. 

Jane Welford 

Executive Secretary 

SuperBOLD 

Veteran California Congressman George Miller (Democrat, 7th district) told members of the National Press Club a couple of weeks ago that he will introduce a swatch of changes to Public Law 107-110, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, when it comes up for reauthorization this fall.  

The perversely labeled No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act was ceremoniously signed by Bush on January 8, 2002 in a bipartisan photo op in which two of his political enemies, Miller of the House and Kennedy of the Senate, wore smiles that marked them as the law’s proud co-parents. Sad to say, NCLB does for school children what the equally perversely dubbed Patriot Act does for adults; NCLB is as antithetical to learning as PA is to civil liberties. Flip a coin and decide which of the two most deserves killing. 

With four college degrees on my resume I am qualified to execute NCLB. I spent 35 years in education, all of them in the classroom, two in China, 17 simultaneously as administrator. I worked at six Bay Area public and private schools. My students ranged from eleven year olds to middle aged graduates and all ages in between.  

Alas, although qualified and willing I am not in a position to do the killing. I shall state what I’ve learned that proves why NCLB merits the death penalty.  

All the world’s a school and all the teachers in it merely players whose careers unfold through several stages. 

First we are excited and joyous at the prospect of getting paid to perform daily before a captured audience. Then comes the satisfaction and thrill of telling about and explaining things that students might not otherwise encounter. Fourth comes struggle, jousting with parents and coping with mandated non-scholastic intrusions. Excitement, enjoyment and satisfaction strengthens you and you arrive at the fortitude stage that lifts you to the level of confidence which lead, finally to the last stage of all, oblivion regarding anything that intrudes upon the relationship between you and your students.  

I am forever grateful that the curtain came down on my performances before the arrival of NCLB.  

This law sets up a process deemed appropriate to make each school accountable for what it exists to do. Based on specially designed averaging of its students’ test scores a school is assigned a rating and this rating, according to NCLB, indicates the academic proficiency of that school. This is like rating a hospital according to an amalgamated assessment of its patients’ health. [Well, not quite, because no one is mandated to spend five days a week in the hospital, as children are mandated to attend school, but you get the point.] 

NCLB further creates five proficiency categories: Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic and Far Below Basic. The Department of Education then assigns each school to a category. Despite the obvious fact that “good” schools often turn out poor students and “poor” schools produce good students (ask any student), NCLB makes student proficiency the measure of school proficiency. The effect is logical sleight of hand, a misappropriation of predicates; equating the locus of an activity, the school, with the activity it exists to accomplish, proficiency in learning. 

This much has always been true. Schools exist to provide for the young a portion of mental development that parents, for various reasons, are incapable of giving. Districts manage schools wherein teachers strive to impart knowledge and facilitate learning.  

This much has always been true. Learning takes place in the mind which cannot be scrutinized for, by the nature of things, no one can know the mind of another. Schools, therefore, cannot themselves be held accountable for learning any more than hospitals can be held accountable for wellness.  

How about teachers? 

Congressman Miller wants to add “pay for performance” which balances the threat of proficiency standards with legally sanctioned bribery. Forget the contention that will be aroused by Miller’s revival of “merit pay”—good teachers paid more than their inferior colleagues—there is inherent error in transferring standards where output is palpable, as in manufacturing, to an enterprise in which there is no visible output. Such a transference carries the frustration of trying to put a round peg in a square hole—teachers are not factory workers.  

More importantly, however, people who have little or no classroom experience are often satisfied with the belief that teachers cause learning which is simply not true (ask any student). I facilitated learning much as I imagine doctors facilitate health. I helped students, encouraged them, made it easier perhaps, led them to “water,” as it were, but, if they had no thirst for it, I could not make them learn.  

Teaching and learning are, therefore, not cause-effect related. Just as with schools, “good” teachers help poor students, “poor” teachers help good students, and so forth. All students know these things but politicians, evidently, do not, which is all the more perplexing because they too were once students.  

In formulating NCLB lawmakers and educationists who advised them appear to invoke a tried and true business principle: you can’t manage what you can’t measure. But in order to apply this principle to education one must assume that a score on a standardized test, say in math, actually measures ability to do math. It does not.  

Although a high score may correlate with competence it does not guarantee it and inversely, a low score may not be an indication of incompetence.  

Congressman Miller along with most school managers are inclined to overlook the fact that testing takes place under specific time, place and personal conditions any one of which might render a student’s score inaccurate, transitory and/or irrelevant.  

The accountability mechanism of NCLB, admired by some and scorned by others, is applied annually. If a school persistently falls below acceptable proficiency standards it will eventually be shut down, thereby ejecting the baby with the wash. 

Finally, cynicism leads me to suspect that NCLB was intended to fail, not by Miller perhaps but by some of his Republican colleagues who voted with him. My suspicion arises from the fact that the Republican majority in Congress never sufficiently funded the law; the money allocated covered so small a portion of what the law required that it was, metaphorically, stillborn.  

This much has always been true. Students’ minds are not passive receptacles into which knowledge can be poured but they are at once the seat and the source of learning.  

Why mourn the execution of NCLB? 

“Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, remains alien to his true nature.” 

—K. W. F. von Humboldt, Education Minister, Prussia, 1809-10.  

Marvin Chachere is a San Pablo resident.

Of all the news that came out of the recent Yearly Kos convention, the story that lingers in my mind tells how Hillary Clinton was put on the spot by San Francisco blogger Paul Hogarth. Hogarth, a lawyer who is the managing editor of the online newspaper BeyondChron (and a former member of the Berkeley Rent Board), pitched his humdinger in a break-out session with the senator. Writing online (of course), he recounted the exchange: 

“Senator Clinton,” I said. “My name is Paul Hogarth, and I am from BeyondChron in San Francisco. First, I’d like to thank you for having gone on the record saying that you would repeal ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,’ which passed during your husband’s administration. I want to ask you about four other pieces of legislation that happened in the Clinton years, and whether you would be willing to advocate their repeal—the Defense of Marriage Act, the Telecommunications Act, NAFTA, and the Welfare Bill.” 

Clinton’s response, Hogarth reported, “was absolutely awful.” Exposing herself “as an anti-progressive triangulator,” she ambiguously defended three of the four reactionary laws and blamed the fourth, the Telecommunications Act—which expedited the consolidation of the media a la Rupert Murdoch—on Al Gore.  

Even more interesting than the senator’s reply, however, is the fact that her dialogue with Hogarth happened at all, which is to say, the fact that a seasoned politician found herself having to answer a tough question in a public forum. Indeed, the candidate had apparently tried to ensure that the 30-minute Q & A would be a banal affair. Questioners were selected by her Internet Director, Peter Daou. As Hogarth tells it, until he was chosen, the senator’s knowledgeable staffer had called on four familiar and reliably unchallenging interrogators. But with only five minutes to go, Daou took a chance and picked Hogarth. That choice led to what the Washington Post called “the only moment of tension” in the program. That such uneasy moments are rare in the Clinton campaign is suggested by the attention that the mainstream press paid to this one: the Associated Press’s veteran correspondent Ron Fournier devoted a whole article to the senator’s uncharacteristic equivocations.  

But the episode revealed something far more more troubling than Hillary Clinton’s reluctance to grapple with her husband’s legislative legacy—namely, the sorry state of American political discourse. A pointed query caught a seasoned campaigner off guard precisely because it was so unexpected, just as the questioner knew it would be. “Politicians,” Hogarth later observed in BeyondChron, “are trained ‘stay on message.’” Public figures deflect disconcerting questions and comments with a variety of rhetorical defenses. They answer the question that they wish had been asked rather than the off-message one at hand. They dither and dally: Early in the break-out session, Clinton took nine minutes to respond to a softball query; by running the clock, she cut down the total number of questions she would have to field. Such diversionary tactics can be foiled by a good format and a competent moderator. Sad to say, nowadays a good format and a competent moderator are hard to find. The upshot is that Americans rarely witness a meaningful political debate, much less participate in one. 

That said, the Yearly Kos incident demonstrates that one well-crafted question can, if only momentarily, turn an innocuous, highly managed forum into a riveting event. Formulating such a question and then getting the chance to ask it requires a little luck and a lot of forethought. Hogarth offers some tips: “[N]ever walk into the room without having memorized the question you’re planning to ask.” He spent two days preparing his question for Clinton. “Ask an original question they don’t expect.” In this case, that meant not bringing up Iraq. “[U]nless my question [about Iraq] had been brilliant,” Hogarth explains, “she probably would have had a pre-arranged sound bite” for a response. “Avoid sounding mean and shrill.” Hogarth opened by thanking the senator for her willingness to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” “Wear a bright shirt.” Clinton’s Internet Director called on all the other questioners by name; he identified Hogarth as “the man in the red shirt.”  

For the complete list of Hogarth’s suggestions, see “I Stumped Hillary at Yearly Kos…So Can You,” in the BeyondChron archives for September 8, 2007. All his ideas are worthwhile; just remember that they work best when a would-be interlocutor is unknown to those running the show (Hogarth notes that it’s unlikely he’ll ever get called upon at another Clinton event). Even then, the show has to provide a genuine opportunity to ask a question in your own voice—none of this writing your question on a slip of paper and handing it to someone who hands it to the moderator, who may or may not choose to ask it, or who may rephrase it in terms that mangle your intent. Berkeley citizens deserve many more such opportunities, but that’s a subject for another column. For now, start working on your questions, and make sure your wardrobe includes a bright shirt. 

Zelda Bronstein is a former chair of the Planning Commission and ran for mayor in 2006.

Berkeley residents have made two superb documentaries about the long-term impact of the war in Iraq: No End in Sight and Soldiers of Conscience. 

No End in Sight asks why did the occupation fail? It considers Bush administration decisions that turned the Iraqis against the United States and guaranteed the rise of the insurgency. Soldiers of Conscience asks: What is this war doing to us? It studies the impact of Iraq military service on the lives of four soldiers and, by extension, all Americans. 

No End in Sight reprises questions addressed in recent books and articles, notably Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor and The Assassins’ Gate by George Packer. The documentary examines six decisions that guaranteed the occupation would fail: not sending enough troops to keep the peace; moving responsibility for the occupation from the Department of State—where advance planning had been done—to the Department of Defense—where no planning had been done; not stopping the looting; not establishing an interim Iraqi government; De-Ba’thification—prohibiting all members of Saddam’s Ba’th Party from holding public office; and disbanding the Iraqi Army. 

Berkeley resident Charles Ferguson—the director, producer and writer of No End in Sight—dissects these decisions by interviewing many of the principals: notably former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, former Iraqi Ambassador Barbara Bodine, former Iraq Czar Jay Garner, former Iraq Army liaison Paul Hughes, former head of the National Intelligence Council Robert Hutchings, and Senior DOD Executive Walter Slocombe. What emerges is a familiar story: the White House was locked into their view of Iraq and didn’t want contradictory information. No End in Sight tells this tragic story from the perspective of Americans who wanted to do the right thing, who believed our mission was to free the Iraqi people and to establish a model democracy. Many of the interviewees were career civil servants but some are the men and women who risked their lives in Iraq; notably Marine Lieutenant Seth Moulton whose poignant words end the film: “Don’t tell me that [this] is the best America can do. That makes me angry.” 

Soldiers of Conscience was produced and directed by Berkeley residents Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan. The documentary considers the moral/psychological impact of military service in Iraq. It begins with a remarkable statistic: in World War II only 25 percent of American soldiers who had a chance to fire their weapon at the enemy, actually did so. The military saw this as a problem and developed “reflexive fire training,” a technique to condition American soldiers to kill without thinking. In the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf wars, the firing rates went up until 85 to 95 percent of American soldiers were willing to fire on the enemy. No one has compiled statistics for the Iraq war but the firing rate is believed to be near 100 percent; the film’s grim images of Iraqi dead and wounded appear to confirm this. 

Soldiers of Conscience observes, “The problem with reflexive fire training is that it bypasses the moral process.” Camilo Mejia, one of four U.S. soldiers whose experience is the heart of the documentary, chillingly recalls shooting a young Iraqi without thinking. 

Mejia, Joshua Casteel, Kevin Benderman, and Aidan Delgado all decided they were conscientious objectors and requested an end to their military service. Casteel and Delgado were quickly ushered out. Mejia and Benderman first served time in jail. Interestingly, both Casteel and Delgado changed after serving at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Benderrman and Mejia came to their decision after returning to the United States and reflecting upon what they’d seen and done in Iraq. 

While Soldiers of Conscience provides fascinating insight into the moral dilemmas posed by military service in Iraq and the brave decisions made by four soldiers, it leaves unanswered an important question: what are the long term moral/psychological affects of reflexive fire training? Statistics indicate that record numbers of Iraq war veterans suffer from psychological ailments, most notably Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. (The Army suicide rate is also at a 26-year high.) This has burdened the agencies charged with helping our veterans. It also has had a negative impact on our economy, as many of the psychologically impaired returnees cannot resume their former occupations. 

No End in Sight and Soldiers of Conscience demonstrate that America practices decision-making that bypasses the ethical process. We teach “reflexive fire training” so that our soldiers will kill without thinking. No End in Sight proves that high-ranking Bush administration officials made snap decisions about the occupation of Iraq without adequately considering the long-term consequences—they fired without thinking. 

That’s what’s profoundly disturbing about both of these excellent documentaries: they provide further evidence that America abandoned critical thinking in Iraq. 

No End in Sight is playing at Berkeley’s Shattuck Cinemas. To view Soldiers of Conscience see www.socfilm.com. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net. 

There was always something that seemed extraordinarily fortuitous about the supposed quick solving of the Chauncey Bailey murder case. 

To believe the public statements over that frantic weekend following the 14th Street shooting death of the Oakland Post editor two weeks ago, you would have to believe that with no prior suspicion that Your Black Muslim Bakery associates had something to do with Bailey’s death, the Oakland Police Department were lucky enough to raid bakery properties less than 24 hours after Bailey’s death, discovering the murder weapon which the alleged murderer was stupid enough to bring home with him rather than disposing it in any number of ways one might easily imagine. 

Police investigators are often lucky. Perpetrators are often stupid. That both occurred during the most high-profile Oakland murder in more than 30 years—one that would have brought enormous pressure on police and city officials the longer it went unsolved—is something that might have given one pause. 

But anyone who attended the packed Friday afternoon press conference at OPD headquarters the afternoon following the bakery raid, or who has read the press coverage in the weeks afterwards, knows that there has been little pause in the press or in the public, once OPD officials announced that evidence relating to the Bailey murder had been found by police during the bakery premises raid. Any trail of inquiry other than those that led to Your Black Muslim Bakery went out the public door with the Saturday story leaked in the Oakland Tribune—and confirmed the following Monday by OPD Deputy Chief Howard Jordan—that a 19-year-old handyman at the bakery, Devaughndre Broussard, had confessed to Bailey’s murder. (The San Francisco Chronicle later reported that “Broussard was seen throwing a shotgun out the window of a raided home on 59th Street in Oakland, and a match was made between the weapon and shell casings found near Bailey’s body, police said.”) And when Mr. Jordan told reporters that OPD investigators did not believe Mr. Broussard’s story that he, Mr. Broussard, acted alone in the murder, with Mr. Jordan carefully adding that, “We don’t believe he acted on his own. We’re still working on how that plan was developed,” the popular assumption was that this meant that Broussard acted under orders, and that those orders came from Your Black Muslim Bakery officials. 

But Mr. Broussard has since recanted that confession, signed without his counsel being present, and yesterday, the Tribune reports Broussard’s attorney, LeRue Grim, is saying that bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, not Broussard, is the person behind Bailey’s death. 

“You would think he is the main guy responsible for all of this,” the Tribune quotes Mr. Grim. “That is just logical, he is in charge of the whole place.” 

The Broussard confession has also been tainted by the fact—confirmed by OPD officials—that OPD investigators allowed Mr. Bey IV, who was also arrested during the bakery raid, to talk privately with Mr. Broussard in the interrogation room at police headquarters shortly before Mr. Broussard made his confession. According to the Tribune, OPD Sgt. Derwin Longmire confirmed that Bey IV, 21, spoke with Broussard and said, “Yusuf Bey IV was allowed to speak to Broussard as part of the investigative strategy.” 

The Bey IV-Broussard meeting inside police headquarters while both were under arrest seems a strange type of “strategy” for police investigators. The tossing of the murder weapon by Mr. Broussard did not automatically link him directly to the murder of Chauncey Bailey, but the discovery of the weapon on a property “associated” with Your Black Muslim Bakery provided police with a link between the bakery and the murder. That immediately gave OPD investigators considerable leverage over the seven individuals arrested in the Aug. 3 police raids, the two people who were under warrant but eluded arrest, and anyone else associated with the bakery. 

Mr. Broussard’s original confession—in which he absolved anyone else but himself of responsibility for or participation in Mr. Bailey’s murder—took other bakery members off the hook, at least for the time being. Was the Bey IV-Broussard jailhouse meeting then a “mistake” by police investigators, making them lose leverage against other bakery associates they earlier had? Or was obtaining the confession part of a police strategy to ramp up pressure on Mr. Broussard, forcing him to implicate other bakery associates, as his attorney is now doing? I don’t have any answers to those questions, but maybe that will become manifest as more things are revealed about the investigation. 

Meanwhile, while we ought to listen to Mr. Broussard’s attorney, we ought to be careful about what we take for information, and what we take for spin. 

Mr. Grim came into this case at a difficult time, with his client already having signed a confession, first, and then repudiating it by saying that police had beaten it out of him. Mr. Grim’s job, as a defense attorney charged with defending his client, has been to stir up as much doubt as he can about the original confession, and to try to point the finger of guilt away from Mr. Broussard. He has done a good job of it in a bad situation. But because Mr. Grim now infers that Mr. Bey IV may be “the main guy responsible for all of this” does not necessarily mean that Mr. Broussard believes that or will eventually testify to it, much less that it is actually true. 

Let us boil down what we know or reasonably believe to be fact, at this point. 

First, Chauncey Bailey was working on an article for the Oakland Post that was critical to certain members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, critical enough to anger them.  

Second, the Bailey murder weapon was found by police on one of the premises associated with Your Black Muslim Bakery. (This a fact one can reasonably assume, since Mr. Grim has not disputed it.) 

From these two sets of facts, which were introduced at the Friday OPD press conference following the bakery raids, many have concluded that one or more bakery associates killed Chauncey Bailey. Some—maybe many—have also concluded that the killings were ordered by top bakery officials. 

But while those conclusions certainly could be true, the two sets of facts that we have earlier outlined don’t necessarily make those conclusions true. 

While there is a likelihood that the presence of the murder weapon on bakery property means that someone associated with the bakery was responsible for Mr. Bailey’s murder, it does not leave out the possibility that the weapon was planted there after the shooting by someone not associated with the bakery, but who wanted to implicate the bakery. (I am not suggesting that this scenario is true; I am only trying to see what is proven, so far, by the facts and evidence on hand.) 

And while one can reasonably conclude that if it is determined that a bakery associate murdered Chauncey Bailey, such a murder came under the orders of bakery officials, one can also conclude, just as reasonably, that history has provided a possibility that just the opposite could also be the case. 

In 1965, former Nation of Islam minister Malcolm X was shot and killed by three gunmen in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York. The gunmen, who were captured on the scene and identified by eyewitnesses to the shooting, were revealed to be members of the Nation of Islam. Because Malcolm X had left the Nation of Islam under difficult circumstances, and had been publicly feuding with the organization ever since, there was a widespread conclusion that Malcolm X’s murder was carried out under orders by top NOI officials. 

But that, in fact, was never proven, and many of Malcolm X’s supporters now believe it not to be true. 

In a note in Malcolm X’s autobiography, published after his death, co-author Alex Haley said that following his split with the Nation, Malcolm X had been poisoned during a trip to Europe. According to Mr. Haley, Malcolm X told him that while he (Malcolm) believed that NOI officials may have wanted him dead, he (Malcolm) did not believe the NOI had the capability of making an attack on European soil, and that there was a death plot against him from an entity with a longer reach. 

From that revelation, many of Malcolm X’s supporters began to believe that Malcolm X’s assassination was ordered by some group or organization other than the NOI, which used NOI members to commit the act in order to throw suspicion on the NOI and away from the real perpetrators. 

In the same way, someone who wanted to kill Chauncey Bailey could have used an associate or associates of Your Black Muslim Bakery to commit the act, in the hope that once the public learned of Your Black Muslim Bakery involvement in any way, the public would think that the orders came from bakery officials, and would concentrate all efforts on proving that. 

The Your Black Muslim Bakery story, after all, was not the only story Chauncey Bailey was working on, nor the only sensitive area he had dug into. 

Am I saying I believe this scenario is true, that the bakery was set up to take the fall for the Chauncey Bailey murder? Am I defending Your Black Muslim Bakery? 

Absolutely not. 

I am saying that I want to know who killed Chauncey Bailey and, if it was under orders, who gave the orders. Public opinion now points in the direction of Your Black Muslim Bakery and only Your Black Muslim Bakery, both as the perpetrators and the order givers, but the available evidence that has been so far publicly presented does not (yet) justify such a conclusion. Unless and until it does, I am going to continue to wait, and watch, and keep an open mind, and try not to miss anything important. Hope you do so, too. 

We all need a sanity break from Berkeley every now and then, but not everyone can fly off to the Seychelles or to Switzerland when the urge to flee is upon us. 

Happily, beauty and calm are within easy reach in northern California. Only 55 miles away, the Sonoma Valley offers a myriad historic, visual, and gustatory attractions. Many of these are concentrated in the lovely town of Sonoma, which was built around Mission San Francisco Solano—the last and northernmost of California’s 21 missions. 

Established in 1823, after Mexico had obtained its independence from Spain, the mission was secularized in 1834 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1907–1890), whose title at the time was Military Commander and Director of Colonization of the Northern Frontier. 

Vallejo would soon become Comandante General of Alta California. Even after California had joined the Union, Vallejo continued to be active in public life. A member of the first State Constitutional Convention, he was elected to the first Legislature as State Senator. 

Nothing marked the difference between Vallejo’s Mexican and American periods more sharply than his residences. As Comandante General, he lived in La Casa Grande, a traditional two-story adobe house overlooking the central plaza. As State Senator, he settled in what he proudly called his “Yankee Home” and “Boston House.” 

In 1850, Vallejo purchased a 500-acre tract of open land half-a-mile west of the Sonoma plaza. The land included a free-flowing spring called Chiucuyem (Tears of the Mountain) by the Native Americans. Vallejo bestowed a Latin version of the name on his new estate, christening it Lachryma Montis. 

The house erected at Lachryma Montis in 1851–52 was designed and prefabricated in New England, shipped by sailboat around Cape Horn, and assembled on site. The style is Carpenter Gothic—the American wood-frame version of Victorian Gothic Revival, which had come into vogue on the East Coast in the previous decade. 

Despite its generous size, General Vallejo’s home appears like a dollhouse thanks to quaint details such as steeply pitched, dormered roof gables; lacy bargeboards “dripping” from the eaves; green-shuttered windows; and porches festooned with grape arbors. 

Perfectly symmetrical, the house points its parlor wing to the south, leading forth with a Gothic lancet window on the second floor and a slender bay window directly below. The hall is entered from twin porches flanking this wing on east and west. Behind the hall on the ground floor is the main wing, containing the dining room, the General’s study (he once owned the largest library in the state), and two rear bedrooms. 

Two narrow staircases—front and back—climb to the second floor, where the large master bedroom is located over the parlor. Behind it are a small sewing room turned nursery and two bedrooms that were once occupied by the Vallejos’ youngest daughters, Luisa and Maria. With the exception of the nursery, all the rooms in the main house—seven in all—contain white marble fireplaces venting through five chimneys. 

Many house museums are furnished with generic period artifacts collected here and there. Not so the Vallejo house, which is filled with genuine family heirlooms, from furniture and paintings to musical instruments and clothing. For the General’s bicentennial birthday on July 4, his embroidered silk vest was put on display in the parlor. 

All these treasures came down to us from Luisa, the fifteenth of sixteen Vallejo children, who inherited the estate and lived here until her death in 1943. Luisa sold the property with its contents to the State of California in 1933 and was the first curator of Lachryma Montis, which was turned into a state park. 

Typical of mid-19th century houses, the Vallejo residence has no bathrooms—the family made do with washstands and chamber pots. As a precaution against fire, the kitchen was located in a separate building in the rear. A simpler version of the main house, this cookhouse also served as the servants’ dining room, the cook’s sleeping quarters, and a storage loft. It is separated from the main house by an old grape arbor planted with an old Flame Tokay vine that still bears fruit in abundance. This vine is the legacy of Agoston Haraszthy (1812–1869), a Hungarian immigrant who founded the Buena Vista winery in 1857 and is known as the Father of California Viticulture. Two of Haraszthy’s sons married two of the General’s daughters. The Flame Tokay was one of thousands of cuttings Haraszthy shipped from Europe to California. 

West of the main house sits the enchanting El Delírio, a diminutive garden pavilion surrounded by trellis work and fronted by a cast iron swan fountain. Here Vallejo wrote his five-volume history, Recuerdos Historicos y Personales Tocantes à la Alta California, 1769–1849. 

Behind the cookhouse is a large reservoir lined on one side by a brick-paved wooden pergola. A sizable population of turtles inhabits these waters, and a thicket of prickly-pear cactus dominates the far shore, where a winding stone staircase leads to a reconstruction of the Hermitage. This one-room hut was built for the use of Vallejo’s son Platon during his school vacations and later became the domain of the youngest son, Napoleon, who kept a menagerie that at one time included 14 dogs, several cats, and a parrot. 

Returning to the main courtyard, you’ll want to visit the museum located in the half-timbered brick building displaying a gigantic carriage lantern. This structure, prefabricated with imported components, was used for storing wine and produce before being converted to residential use and named the Chalet. 

The $2 admission fee also covers other sites in the Sonoma State Historic Park, including Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma, the Sonoma Barracks, the Toscano Hotel, and Vallejo’s Petaluma Adobe. 

General Vallejo’s domain might inspire you to emulate his gracious lifestyle. Fortunately, just one block to the west one can dine opulently and memorably in Sonoma’s most highly acclaimed restaurant, The General's Daughter. Built in 1870, this Italianate structure was the home of Natalia Vallejo and her husband, the vintner Attila Haraszthy. The food and wine are fabulous. Bring plenty of money. 

Getting there:  

Lachryma Montis 

363 3rd Street West (off West Spain St.) 

Sonoma, CA 95476 

(707) 938-9559 

The General's Daughter Restaurant 

400 West Spain Street (at 4th Street) 

Sonoma, CA 95476 

(707) 938-4004 

Photograph: Daniella Thompson 

General Vallejo’s house was prefabricated and shipped from New England in 1851. 

Glenn Keator talked to the Merritt College Aesthetic Pruning Club’s annual symposium last week about planting in containers, and here are some of the things he said and evoked: 

Container planting is great in urban spaces where there’s no room for a conventional garden or access to the dirt. It’s also a good way to dress up a dirt garden: a container plant can call attention to a spot, or can be displayed when it’s in bloom or in season and then moved offstage afterwards.  

Container planting can be used to solve—even if temporarily, still usefully—difficulties posed by soil deficiencies like intractable clay or hardpan. You can have plants to enjoy or harvest while you work on drainage or toxicity problems.  

Container plantings are also portable, a great thing if you’re in a temporary housing situation whether renting or in a dorm.  

That’s also an advantage because you can move the plants to take advantage of sun as the seasons change, or to shelter tender plants using the eaves and thermal mass of a building when we get the odd 30-degree Fahrenheit spell in January.  

Another speaker noted that one can use container plants in some situations as a privacy screen to turn an otherwise visible deck into a personal solar-powered spa-lette to eliminate tan lines for an arguably special occasion.  

I myself must disrecommend this stratagem in particular to anyone who is as melanin-challenged as I am, as I am reaching the stage of having little bits of myself whacked off between semiannual skin-cancer checkups.  

I must also note that that speaker has not so far demonstrated the reported effects to any neutral third party, as a truly scientific finding would require. Not that I’m volunteering. 

Container gardening has some rules that differ greatly from dirt gardening. 

First: Don’t just dig up some dirt from the yard (or take some from a handy construction site) to fill your pots. Native soil, especially in most of the Bay Area, just doesn’t work for potting; it’s too dense and sticky. Seems a shame not to use all that free dirt, but there it is.  

You need what’s called a “soilless mix” or just plain “potting soil,” available in sacks at nurseries and variety stores like Long’s on Broadway.  

This stuff is theoretically nearly sterile, at least pasteurized, so it doesn’t foster pathogens like some fungi that attack potted plants and won’t have plant-eating nematodes and such annoying inhabitants either.  

Plants in the ground are susceptible to these too of course, but there’s something about being pent up in a container that concentrates the forces of plant-preying evil. 

Part of that something is drainage, which soilless mixes are designed to improve. They’re mostly larger particles than our clay. (Clay has particles so fine they trap water in the spaces between them, by the functional equivalent of surface tension.)  

There are plenty of brands to choose from, most roughly equivalent. Keator did have an unkind word for American Soil’s private mix, in which he has found big ol’ clay lumps.  

More about containers next week.  

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her  

“Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s  

East Bay Home & Real Estate  

section. Her column on East Bay 

trees appears every other Tuesday  

in the Daily Planet.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Hysteria” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Sept. 30. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822.  

California Shakespeare Theater “The Triumph of Love” at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through Sept. 2. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

“Citizen Josh” with monologoist Josh Kornbluth, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison St., through Spet. 2. Tickets are $25-$30. 647-2949. 

Masquers Playhouse “The Shadow Box” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through Sept. 29. This show is not recommended for children.Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org  

TheaterInSearch “Epic of Gilgamesh” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Sept. 2. Tickets are $12-$20. 262-0584. 

Viaticum “The Carnal Table” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. through Sept. 2. Tickets are $10-$15. 848-3338. 

FILM 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “First on the Moon” at 7 p.m. and “To the Stars by Hard Ways” at 8:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Curl reads from his new novelistic memoir, “Memories of Drop City: The First Hippie Commune of the 1960s and the Summer of Love” at 7:30 p.m. at The Book Zoo, 6395 Telegraph Ave., at Alcatraz, Oakland. 654-2665. 

Greil Marcus describes “The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

An Evening with Drew Dellinger, poetry, at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Reidenbach Hall, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Tickets are $20. 451-4926. www.earthlight.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Goat Hall Productions Cabaret Operas “The Playboy of the Western World” and “Dionysus” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 201 Broadway at Jack London Square, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$25. 415-289-6877. 

E.W. Wainwright’s African Roots of Jazz perform “The Social Evolution of Jazz” at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Unsmokables, vocal and instrumental improvisation at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568.  

Eric Swinderman, In Pursuit of Sound at 7 p.m. at Bobby G’s Pizzeria, 2072 University Ave. 665-8866.  

Pete Escovedo & Ray Obiedo Latin Jazz Project at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Wellman-Savage Unit featuring Walter Savage-bass, Angela Wellman-trombone, at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St. Cost is $15. 836-4649. 

Brave Combo, rock, polka, jazz, Tex-Mex, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Walter Pope at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

The Waybacks at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Robin Galante, Mario DeSio and Kwame Copeland at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Jazzschool Summer Program Youth and Faculty Concerts at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

GG Elvfis & The TCP Band, The Abuse at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Sentinel at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Sila & the Afro Funk Experience at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Beep! Trio at 5 p.m., Bill Ortiz Band at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Steve E Nix, Rock and Roll Adventure Kids at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

James Carter at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 25 

CHILDREN  

Puppet Theater Fesitval “Why Mosquitos Buzz in Our Ears” Sat. and Sun. at noon and Pinocchio: The Hip-Hopera at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave. 452-2259. 

THEATER 

Shotgun Players “The Three Musketeers” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkle Park, Southampton Ave., off The Arlington, through Sept. 9. Free. 841-6500. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Mark Axelrod “Sticks and Stones Not Only Break Bones” oil paintings, and Linda Braz “Explorations” mixed media installations and sketches. Party and benefit auction at 7 p.m. at The Gallery Of Urban Art, 1746 13th St. Oakland. 706-1697. 

Works by David Delany Reception at 1 p.m. at Alta Galleria, 2980 College Ave., Suite #4. 421-1255. www.AltaGalleria.com  

“Downhome Show” paintings by Janet Berrien, Debbie Clausen, Chris Peterson and Odette Larde. Reception at 6 p.m. at Fourth Street Studio, 1717D 4th St. 527-0600. 

FILM 

Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker “Where is the Friend’s Home?” at 6:30 p.m. and “Homework” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Danny Caron at 7 p.m. at Bobby G’s Pizzeria, 2072 University Ave. 665-8866.  

Jeff Zittrain, Americana rock, at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

Carne Cruda and Rico Pabon at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $6-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Kenny Washington & His Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Baba Ken & Kotoja at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson at 9 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

DJ Real and Paulette at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Loosewig Quartet at 1 p.m., Sonanado Project at 5 p.m. and Agualibre at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WCS Songwriter Showcase Grand Finals at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Royal Hawaiian Serenaders at 9 p.m. at Temple Bar Tiki Bar & Grill, 984 University Ave. 548-9888. 

Jazz Fourtet at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Strange Angels at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Winters & Davis, Montana at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

The Botticellis, Winter’s Fall, Pickwick at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Nausea, Moral Decay, In Disgust at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 26 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley Art Center 24th Annual National Juried Exhibition Opening reception at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut Street in Live Oak Park, between Eunice and Rose. 644-9873. 

“Everyday Magic” paintings by Jan Wurm and Suma Shawn, and drawings and welded steel sculpture by Joseph Slusky, opens with a reception at 5 p.m. at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates. Ashby Ave. 204-1667.  

Berkeley’s “Other” Revolution: Celebrating 35 Years of Independent Living, Disability Access, and Disability Rights. Photographs by Ken Stein on display in the windows of Rasputin Music, 2401 Telegraph Ave., between Channing Way and Haste. 525-2325. 

“Art in the Park” Exhibition hosted by the City of Alameda, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Jackson Park, 2430 Encinal Ave., Alameda. arpd@ci.alameda.ca.us  

FILM 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “Solaris” at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Down Home Music Opening in Berkeley with Barbara Dane, Tri Tip Trio Zydeco Band, Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, Eric & Suzy Thompson, Los Cenzontles, Nina Gerber and others from 12:30 to 5 p.m. at 1809 B Fourth St. 204-9595. 

Oak Grove Music Festival Celebrating 268 days of tree occupation, from 1 to 7 p.m. at the Memorial Oak Grove, Piedmont at Bancroft. 938-2109. www.SaveOaks.com 

Breslin and Alex, folk-rock, at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mark Levine Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Edo Castro at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Will Blades/Eddie Marshall Duo at 1 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Dani Torres, flamenco, at 5 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Americana Unplugged: The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Unreal Band, David Elias, Sabrosa and others from 1 to 7 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 27 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Express Open mic theme night on “dreams” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Maria Mikheyenko, Russian songs, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Musica ha Disconnesso at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Tiempo Libre at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 28 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Wonderland, A Fairytale of the Soviet Monolith” Black and white photographs by Jason Eskenazi on display at the Graduate School of Journalism, North Gate Hall, UC Campus.  

FILM 

Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker “Five” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tell on on Tuesdays Storytelling with Tim Ereneta, Maryclare McCauley, Neshama Franklin and Bruce Pachtman at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Cost is $8-$12 sliding scale. www.juiamorgan.org 

Sinan Antoon, author of “I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Bookstore, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Zydeco Flames at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Singers’ Open Mic with Kelly Park at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Randy Craig Trio, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Sophie Milman at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29 

FILM 

International Latino Film Society “O casamento de Romeu e Julieta” at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$6.. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Eco-Amok: An Inconvenient Film Fest “Habitat” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Doug Arrington & His Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Kleptograss at 8 p.m. at Strings, 6320 San Pablo Ave., Emeryville. 

Swingthing at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Fred O’Dell and the Broken Arrows at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Orquestra Liberacion at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Mo’ Fone at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Rick Di Dia & Aireene Espiritu, Blind Willies at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Ed Reed at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $6-$12. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 30 

EXHIBITIONS 

Kala Art Institute Residency Projects, Part 3 opens with a reception at 6 p.m. at 1060 Heinz Ave. Exhibition runs to Oct. 6. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

FILM 

Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker “10 on Ten” at 7 p.m. and “The Wind Will Carry Us” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Earl Shorris describes “The Politics of Heaven: America in Fearful Times” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Meditations, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054.  

Dry Branch Fire Squad at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Paul Perez Project featuring Frank Martin at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

LaWanda & Greg, modern folk, rock at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Will Franken, Jascha Ephraim at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082  

Katura, Afro-Cuban, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$15. 849-2568.  

Allan Hodsworth at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

HOPE BRIGGS SINGS AT YERBA BUENA 

Soprano Hope Briggs, now a Berkeley resident, will present a recital at the Yerba Buena Performing Arts Center, at 701 Mission St. in San Francisco, as part of the AfroSolo Festival on Sunday, August 26th at 3pm. She will be performing works by Strauss, Faure, show tunes, and an exciting contemporary arrangement of spirituals, Lyric Suite, accompanied by Ron Valentino. Tickets from the Yerba Buena box office, (415) 978-2787.

Entering the Ashby Stage for George Charbak’s TheaterInSearch production of the (very) ancient Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, the spectators see a seated, veiled figure, sculptural, atop a model ziggurat, surrounded by gaping masks of bearded Assyrians on the back walls, as strains of the oud (evocatively played by Larry Klein) resound through the hall. 

“I put Gilgamesh into a museum,” Charbak has remarked. This is immediately evident when a kind of docent, kind of redactor (Ana Bayat) appears, posing as many questions in crisp BBC intonation as putting this (literally) Ur-tale, a modern discovery (and translation, with the deciphering of cuneiform), into a not-so-comfortable but very wry context, as she unveils the figure of our hero (Roham Shaikhani), “one of the very finest pieces,” who begins to animate himself like a statue come to life, with the crazy glint and skewed gaze, relentless histrionic gestures and grimace of an actor caught in the nitrate emulsion of silent film (our own modern “antiquity”), like a prehistoric horsefly in amber.  

Calling Gilgamesh an epic poem—“or tragic joke”—the narrator-docent credits the eponymous hero with the invention of cuneiform, religion, god (or at least an integrated pantheon!), science, literature, lit crit, porn—and the relationship between literature and immortality ... “The man who saw everything, who looked in the face of a mystery [as the still-seated figure of Gilgamesh glares, with one finger lifted] ... He was beautiful and strong, they said ... and because he was from the gods, he crushed his own people, who were left wondering, whispering about his own words.” 

With a clap of the hand, “his own people” (Michael Green and Elias D. Protopsaltis) appear, an ongoing, polymorphous burlesque team (out of Beckett or Pinter), deadpanning their way through the drifts of “the snows of yesteryear”—viz., ancient tragedy, an incomprehensible sensibility they handily convert to modern angst and colloquial wit. 

Gilgamesh wrangles with everybody, especially his recondite and smothering mother, Ninsun, who interprets his dreams of a rival and/or boon companion, who falls into his life like a star, disturbing his work (“This means he’ll never abandon you.”).  

Bella Warda, cofounder of Oakland’s Darvag Theatre Company, plays Ninsun deliciously, later doubling as the seductive and jealous goddess Ishtar, who does away with Gilgamesh’s boon companion she can see only as rival—two heroic lads stuck on each other with schoolboy crushes.  

(It’s good to be reminded that there were originally jealous female deities where later the self-proclaimed masculine Els and Allahs would dominate, again, the silent film histrionics are cleverly tipped in and voiced, backdating and outdoing DeMille.) 

Enkidu (a wild-eyed, preoccupied Hayedeh Doroudy-Ahl) eventually appears as the primitive dream-companion, and Babak Mokhtari humorously bores a reclining prostitute (Samera Esmeir) with preBiblical extravagance, exhorting her to seduce the wild man, distract him so that his animal companions will abandon him.  

A funny, stylized sex scene follows, and all goes according to plan, ending with Gilgamesh and Enkidu fighting to the death—that is, until they become captivated with each other. 

This excursion into the deepest past that can be given a voice literally becomes an excursion, as the two buddies take a road trip, overcoming monsters and slaying the bull from the skies, which Ishtar has inveighed the sun-god to turn loose. 

After Enkidu’s demise at the invisible hands of the goddess, Gilgamesh in grief embarks on a journey to discover where the dead go, what happens in the wake of mortality, and is seen as “a beggar! A tramp! A hobo!” by Green and Protopsaltis’ revolving mechanicals. He’s let himself go so (clearly, he’s forgotten the tips his mother gave him once for the perils of the road), gets drunk and cries on the shoulder of a very sympathetic innkeeper (Esmeir again), with whom he dances before losing “the rose that erases anguish, the rose of his youth,” filched by a passerby. 

The languid web of words that shuttles back and forth with humorous insouciance over this disturbing tale of domination undercut by mortality strikes contemporary chords, especially chiming with the discordant sounds of set declarations on the media—and often referring to the “land between two rivers” and its neighbors.  

But Charbak—who has “insisted” his players “make the words their own,” adopts a not-quite so ancient irony regarding myth (in every sense of the word), an irony that dates back to the Socratic dialogues of Plato, resurfaces in Islamic poetry, and was the guiding light of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, never making a one-to-one identity between the stage and the world (as represented on other, equally staged media), making his Gilgamesh paradoxically original yet older-than-old shoe.  

Whether it’s Enkidu, dead, telling his grief stricken friend the ultrabanal result of dusty mortality, or Gilgamesh himself exclaiming to his taped and cheering populace, “I want to be famous--but I already am famous, am I not? I have decided to last forever ... I need weapons!” or who “slaughtered all the trees just to hear the sound” behind him—his most ancient of stories ends in splendid ambiguity: “You who hold in your hand the meaning of life—what is this? Another riddle? ... Why is this man knocking at the doors of history for 5,000 years? Why?” 

Gilgamesh 

The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. 

8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Through Sept. 2. Tickets $12-$20. 262-0584.

“We’ve been exporting democracy to other countries around the world—and maybe we ran out! ... a soupcon of democracy, as they like to say at Chez Panisse ... I’m a monologist—and democracy is a dialogue. At least!” 

Josh Kornbluth is back onstage in Berkeley—on the Thrust Stage at Berkeley Rep, to be specific—for a short run of his new self-reformulation, Citizen Josh, which opened some weeks back at The Magic Theater in San Francisco. And his monologue, which seems like a digression from (or back to) any other of his monologues, is fuller than ever of Berkeley names, places and events, constantly looping around to Josh wondering at the asymmetrical sculpture that towers in Ohlone Park, climbing to its vertiginous apex and getting cell phone reception to call his old college advisor, a continent away ... 

As usual, a Kornbluth reformulation is a little like a new recipe on a cooking show by a less carefree (though just as insouciant)—and less goyish—Julia Child: it involves all the ingredients of the past, whisked up together in the bowl of performance, tasting a little different than before, but still the same old comfort food. 

This time around, Josh is on another mission to redeem the past—his and America’s—by fulfilling his decades past graduation requirements through turning his monologue into his senior thesis—or is it vice versa? As the monologue (or monograph) verbally unfolds, he wends his way a bit crab like in and out of the slightly skewed incidents and encounters that influenced him to get out of physics and into poli-sci, off the East Coast and into his East Bay neighborhood and schtick, nicely syncopated with his growing-up-Red family routines. 

And of course the self-deprecating route is just as important as the personal, if a little offbeat, triumph where it all ends up, like a kind of gathering-up of diaspora of personal history, a big reunion at an anniversary—or graduation, though that was long ago, on another coast ... and without a diploma in the proffered scroll. 

“In my freshman year, my test scores were not reflecting the brilliant quality of my mind ... Cold Fusion, like a woman who dumped me!” So Josh personalizes his exit from science, taking up poli-sci by impulsively following his new advisor, former Berkeleyite Sheldon Wolin—“I knew not why”—down the byzantine corridors that resemble his own interweaving subplots and asides. 

Before the semi-triumphant finish, which brings the audience to an epiphany that they’re part and parcel of their entertainer’s commitment to recovering his actual sheepskin, Josh has brought in a cast of dozens, at least; by implication, teeming masses, including his unregenerately Red parents, his preemie brother (introduced afterwards in the audience), whom his father saved by holding and pacing the ward, the brave African American students caught between guardsmen and white mobs in the integration experiment at Little Rock, Lonnie Hancock and Don Perata (a wry sketch of a master politico working a not-too-friendly room) each finally facing an irritable gaggle of Berkeley activists in the state capitol, the Free Speech movement ... and whoeverelse he can recover from the history of Western Civilization for a temporary fit. 

A San Francisco reviewer referred to Josh’s digressions as “parables,” though they just might be footnotes to his overdue thesis, the kind that aim to impress by casting an eclectic net very wide. That said, there’s something the same about the Kornbluth format, almost a matter of timing, when Josh can wink at his audience and they collectively come up with the way he’s going to end a sentence, in one big shout.  

Whether this is due to preaching to the choir too much, a certain kind of showbiz shrewdness (“Give ’em what they want,” as Billy Wilder opined while contemplating the overflow crowd at much-disliked movie mogul Harry Cohn’s funeral), or less preparation than some of his previous shows (or maybe those old formats are starting to catch up), it serves to reaffirm the faithful and leave lukewarm at best those who see in him a cute, cut-rate Woody Allen of Bay Area preoccupations. 

But Josh is Josh, and as his brand of Jewish humor sometimes dictates, it’s sometimes the arresting detail or an off-kilter aside that makes it all work, not necessarily the well-meaning dash at proving the whole greater than the sum of its parts. 

Citizen Josh 

Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St. 

8 p.m. Thurs.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Through Sept. 2. Tickets $25-$30. 

647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.com

A recent driving tour through the wilds of Northern California and Southern Oregon only reaffirmed what I already knew: that Bay Area cinephiles are lucky, especially in these dull summer months of big-budget drivel, to live in a place where film artistry is not only appreciated, but relatively plentiful.  

If you’re looking for something a bit different, you have a decent chance of finding it at a local venue. And if it’s still not forthcoming, there’s always the home theater. And if you’re looking for something still more different... 

Kino has just released the second volume in its Avant Garde series, featuring films drawn from the collection of the late film collector and preservationist Raymond Rohauer. Rohauer is best known today as the man who rescued the cinematic legacy of Buster Keaton, saving the great comedian’s films from disintegration at a time when they were all but forgotten. But Rohauer’s foresight was not limited to commercial cinema. He also had an appreciation for more aesthetically challenging work, helping to preserve the works and reputations of significant artists from the edgier side of cinema history. 

These films will challenge your preconceptions about the nature of experimental cinema. If your notion of avant-garde film is bad poetry and pretentious close-ups of the human eye ... well, actually there is a bit of that here. More than a bit, really; most of the films in this set feature at least one ominous eyeball. But there’s far more than that here, including a few flat-out masterpieces, films that retain their power more than half a century since their creation. 

The disc begins with Willard Mass’ Geography of the Body (1943), a seven-minute journey across the fascinating terrain of the human body. The film consists of close-ups of the body that at times render it unrecognizable, accompanied by a poetic spoken-word travelogue, rendering the body as a foreign landscape. The film is a tribute to sensuality, providing a new appreciation for that which is often taken for granted.  

The Mechanics of Love (1955), by Maas and Ben Moore, expands the subject matter to the use of the body, juxtaposing it with shots of everyday objects and machinery. The technique brings to light the mechanistic aspects of the human body as well as the sensuality of the inanimate.  

The centerpiece of the set is the seminal avant-garde manifesto Traité de Bave et D’Eternité (Venom and Eternity, 1951), Jean Isidore Isou’s controversial diatribe in which he attempts to transform the language of cinema by destroying the notion of narrative imagery. “Is (the film) a springboard or is it a void?” asked Jean Cocteau. “In 50 years we’ll know the answer.” Well, I have my answer, and I’d say the word “void” is generous, but what do I know? Stan Brakhage called the film “a portal through which every film artist is going to have to pass.” 

Brakhage himself is amply represented with four films on the disc. The Way to Shadow Garden (1954) is a disturbing work, with a soundtrack made up entirely of electronic buzzes and screeches for an Oedipal tale in which the protagonist gouges his eyes out. Meanwhile The Extraordinary Child (1954) is a light, silly tale about a baby born fully grown. 

Other films run the gamut from a cinematic crossword puzzle which viewers are invited to solve based on a montage of clues (accompanied by music by Pacific Film Archive house pianist Jon Mirsalis), to silent domestic melodramas, to stylized visions of the human psyche. But the highlights of the set are two of the shorter films.  

The first is The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), a 12-minute adaptation of the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Directors James Watson and Melville Webber, heavily influenced by the bravura visual stylings of German Expressionism, employ a battery of effects in depicting the paranormal paranoia of Poe’s Gothic horror. Striking set design and mesmerizing optical effects combine to create a surrealistic nightmare.  

The second is Jean Mitry’s Pacific 231 (1949), a kinetic masterpiece that juxtaposes stirring imagery of a train thundering along the French railroads accompanied by a dramatic orchestral score. The footage includes rapidly edited images of the journey, from close-ups of wheels and gears, to the maze of telegraph wires overhead, to the quickly passing landscape, all pieced together in a thrilling montage of power and velocity. Orson Welles once criticized the ponderous style of director Michel Antonioni by declaring that a great shot is not improved by holding it for 10 minutes. Pacific 231 embodies that notion, never resting on a single shot for more than a few seconds in its frenetic rush to its final destination. 

AVANT-GARDE 2: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA, 1928-54 

Featuring 17 films from France, Germany and America. Notes by critic and historian Elliott Stein.  

341 minutes. $29.95. www.kino.com. 

Photograph: A locomotive barrels along the French railways to a dramatic orchestral score in the stirring avant garde masterpiece Pacific 231.

Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has always toyed with a minimalist aesthetic, an approach he derived from the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. It is a technique that calls for patience, both from the filmmaker and his audience, with long, meditative shots that allow characters and themes to gradually reveal themselves before the camera.  

With Five, Kiarostami’s most unabashedly experimental work, he takes the technique to its logical conclusion, and the result is a work that, for all its formal distance and stubborn simplicity, is surprisingly moving and profound. The film screened last night at Pacific Film Archive and will be repeated Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. 

Five consists of five long takes set alongside the Caspian Sea, each shot with an essentially motionless camera. The first watches as the waves toy with a piece of driftwood, pulling it tumbling toward the water, then pushing it back onto shore. The second shows people walking to and fro along a boardwalk with the crashing waves in the background. The third views the sea from a distance as indistinct shapes on the shore become animate, revealing themselves to be dogs lounging at dawn on the beach. The fourth again watches the waves as an army of ducks passes one-by-one before the camera. And the fifth, the only one to employ editing to achieve its effect, focuses on the moon as reflected in a pond while it vanishes and reappears from behind storm clouds, a flirtatious dance performed to the cacophonous soundtrack of toads, until the rain washes it all away. Each episode concludes with a gentle fadeout backed by an understated score that serves as a unifying thread. 

It is particularly noteworthy that the focus all the while is on the water. Wood and ducks and dogs and frogs and people are transitory figures that simply flutter past, ephemeral players that strut and fret across the frame as the timeless, relentless surf pounds away at the shore. 

But this is only one interpretation. As Kiarostami explains in Around Five, a documentary on Kino’s DVD release of the film, the approach starts with his belief that cinema has trained audiences to be mentally lazy, to expect a film to overtly state its meaning in simple terms. But Kiarostami does not believe in literary narrative. Life does not reveal its secrets so easily, why should cinema? Instead, like Ozu before him, he strives for a participatory cinema in which viewers bring their own interpretations to the work. Each episode lulls the viewer into a meditative state (Kiarostami himself stated that viewer should feel free to take a nap during the film), drawing us into the moment and creating a space for quiet reflection. And without the director imposing a pat interpretation on the film, we are free to bring our own experiences and perspectives to the work, infusing it with a wealth of ideas that far surpass any the director could have summoned on his own. 

The notion is that by simply opening up the lens and allowing life to unfold before it, the director immediately relinquishes control, embracing accident, fate, luck and serendipity in the creation of a work that contains more of the mystery, complexity and beauty of life as it really exists. 

Photograph; Driftwood caught in the surf in Abbas Kiarostami’s meditative Five.

We all need a sanity break from Berkeley every now and then, but not everyone can fly off to the Seychelles or to Switzerland when the urge to flee is upon us. 

Happily, beauty and calm are within easy reach in northern California. Only 55 miles away, the Sonoma Valley offers a myriad historic, visual, and gustatory attractions. Many of these are concentrated in the lovely town of Sonoma, which was built around Mission San Francisco Solano—the last and northernmost of California’s 21 missions. 

Established in 1823, after Mexico had obtained its independence from Spain, the mission was secularized in 1834 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1907–1890), whose title at the time was Military Commander and Director of Colonization of the Northern Frontier. 

Vallejo would soon become Comandante General of Alta California. Even after California had joined the Union, Vallejo continued to be active in public life. A member of the first State Constitutional Convention, he was elected to the first Legislature as State Senator. 

Nothing marked the difference between Vallejo’s Mexican and American periods more sharply than his residences. As Comandante General, he lived in La Casa Grande, a traditional two-story adobe house overlooking the central plaza. As State Senator, he settled in what he proudly called his “Yankee Home” and “Boston House.” 

In 1850, Vallejo purchased a 500-acre tract of open land half-a-mile west of the Sonoma plaza. The land included a free-flowing spring called Chiucuyem (Tears of the Mountain) by the Native Americans. Vallejo bestowed a Latin version of the name on his new estate, christening it Lachryma Montis. 

The house erected at Lachryma Montis in 1851–52 was designed and prefabricated in New England, shipped by sailboat around Cape Horn, and assembled on site. The style is Carpenter Gothic—the American wood-frame version of Victorian Gothic Revival, which had come into vogue on the East Coast in the previous decade. 

Despite its generous size, General Vallejo’s home appears like a dollhouse thanks to quaint details such as steeply pitched, dormered roof gables; lacy bargeboards “dripping” from the eaves; green-shuttered windows; and porches festooned with grape arbors. 

Perfectly symmetrical, the house points its parlor wing to the south, leading forth with a Gothic lancet window on the second floor and a slender bay window directly below. The hall is entered from twin porches flanking this wing on east and west. Behind the hall on the ground floor is the main wing, containing the dining room, the General’s study (he once owned the largest library in the state), and two rear bedrooms. 

Two narrow staircases—front and back—climb to the second floor, where the large master bedroom is located over the parlor. Behind it are a small sewing room turned nursery and two bedrooms that were once occupied by the Vallejos’ youngest daughters, Luisa and Maria. With the exception of the nursery, all the rooms in the main house—seven in all—contain white marble fireplaces venting through five chimneys. 

Many house museums are furnished with generic period artifacts collected here and there. Not so the Vallejo house, which is filled with genuine family heirlooms, from furniture and paintings to musical instruments and clothing. For the General’s bicentennial birthday on July 4, his embroidered silk vest was put on display in the parlor. 

All these treasures came down to us from Luisa, the fifteenth of sixteen Vallejo children, who inherited the estate and lived here until her death in 1943. Luisa sold the property with its contents to the State of California in 1933 and was the first curator of Lachryma Montis, which was turned into a state park. 

Typical of mid-19th century houses, the Vallejo residence has no bathrooms—the family made do with washstands and chamber pots. As a precaution against fire, the kitchen was located in a separate building in the rear. A simpler version of the main house, this cookhouse also served as the servants’ dining room, the cook’s sleeping quarters, and a storage loft. It is separated from the main house by an old grape arbor planted with an old Flame Tokay vine that still bears fruit in abundance. This vine is the legacy of Agoston Haraszthy (1812–1869), a Hungarian immigrant who founded the Buena Vista winery in 1857 and is known as the Father of California Viticulture. Two of Haraszthy’s sons married two of the General’s daughters. The Flame Tokay was one of thousands of cuttings Haraszthy shipped from Europe to California. 

West of the main house sits the enchanting El Delírio, a diminutive garden pavilion surrounded by trellis work and fronted by a cast iron swan fountain. Here Vallejo wrote his five-volume history, Recuerdos Historicos y Personales Tocantes à la Alta California, 1769–1849. 

Behind the cookhouse is a large reservoir lined on one side by a brick-paved wooden pergola. A sizable population of turtles inhabits these waters, and a thicket of prickly-pear cactus dominates the far shore, where a winding stone staircase leads to a reconstruction of the Hermitage. This one-room hut was built for the use of Vallejo’s son Platon during his school vacations and later became the domain of the youngest son, Napoleon, who kept a menagerie that at one time included 14 dogs, several cats, and a parrot. 

Returning to the main courtyard, you’ll want to visit the museum located in the half-timbered brick building displaying a gigantic carriage lantern. This structure, prefabricated with imported components, was used for storing wine and produce before being converted to residential use and named the Chalet. 

The $2 admission fee also covers other sites in the Sonoma State Historic Park, including Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma, the Sonoma Barracks, the Toscano Hotel, and Vallejo’s Petaluma Adobe. 

General Vallejo’s domain might inspire you to emulate his gracious lifestyle. Fortunately, just one block to the west one can dine opulently and memorably in Sonoma’s most highly acclaimed restaurant, The General's Daughter. Built in 1870, this Italianate structure was the home of Natalia Vallejo and her husband, the vintner Attila Haraszthy. The food and wine are fabulous. Bring plenty of money. 

Getting there:  

Lachryma Montis 

363 3rd Street West (off West Spain St.) 

Sonoma, CA 95476 

(707) 938-9559 

The General's Daughter Restaurant 

400 West Spain Street (at 4th Street) 

Sonoma, CA 95476 

(707) 938-4004 

Photograph: Daniella Thompson 

General Vallejo’s house was prefabricated and shipped from New England in 1851. 

Glenn Keator talked to the Merritt College Aesthetic Pruning Club’s annual symposium last week about planting in containers, and here are some of the things he said and evoked: 

Container planting is great in urban spaces where there’s no room for a conventional garden or access to the dirt. It’s also a good way to dress up a dirt garden: a container plant can call attention to a spot, or can be displayed when it’s in bloom or in season and then moved offstage afterwards.  

Container planting can be used to solve—even if temporarily, still usefully—difficulties posed by soil deficiencies like intractable clay or hardpan. You can have plants to enjoy or harvest while you work on drainage or toxicity problems.  

Container plantings are also portable, a great thing if you’re in a temporary housing situation whether renting or in a dorm.  

That’s also an advantage because you can move the plants to take advantage of sun as the seasons change, or to shelter tender plants using the eaves and thermal mass of a building when we get the odd 30-degree Fahrenheit spell in January.  

Another speaker noted that one can use container plants in some situations as a privacy screen to turn an otherwise visible deck into a personal solar-powered spa-lette to eliminate tan lines for an arguably special occasion.  

I myself must disrecommend this stratagem in particular to anyone who is as melanin-challenged as I am, as I am reaching the stage of having little bits of myself whacked off between semiannual skin-cancer checkups.  

I must also note that that speaker has not so far demonstrated the reported effects to any neutral third party, as a truly scientific finding would require. Not that I’m volunteering. 

Container gardening has some rules that differ greatly from dirt gardening. 

First: Don’t just dig up some dirt from the yard (or take some from a handy construction site) to fill your pots. Native soil, especially in most of the Bay Area, just doesn’t work for potting; it’s too dense and sticky. Seems a shame not to use all that free dirt, but there it is.  

You need what’s called a “soilless mix” or just plain “potting soil,” available in sacks at nurseries and variety stores like Long’s on Broadway.  

This stuff is theoretically nearly sterile, at least pasteurized, so it doesn’t foster pathogens like some fungi that attack potted plants and won’t have plant-eating nematodes and such annoying inhabitants either.  

Plants in the ground are susceptible to these too of course, but there’s something about being pent up in a container that concentrates the forces of plant-preying evil. 

Part of that something is drainage, which soilless mixes are designed to improve. They’re mostly larger particles than our clay. (Clay has particles so fine they trap water in the spaces between them, by the functional equivalent of surface tension.)  

There are plenty of brands to choose from, most roughly equivalent. Keator did have an unkind word for American Soil’s private mix, in which he has found big ol’ clay lumps.  

More about containers next week.  

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her  

“Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s  

East Bay Home & Real Estate  

section. Her column on East Bay 

trees appears every other Tuesday  

in the Daily Planet.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

“Holy Land: Common Ground” A screening of Ed Gaffney and Alicia Dwyer’s documentary about Palestinian-Israeli cooperation in the midst of conflict at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Suggested donation $10. 524-3359.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 25 

San Pablo Park Centennial Festival with a dedication of a plaque commemorating Frances Albrier and a new mural, live music, crafts and community booths, food and activities for children, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 2800 Park St., bewteen Russell and Ward. 981-6640. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234.  

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Sheffield Village Meet at 10 a.m. near the traffic island at the southeast corner of Revere Ave and Marlowe Drive to disover this pre-WWII community. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218.  

Family to Family Volunteer Day at the Alameda County Community Food Bank Learn about the face of hunger in our community for parents and children ages 5 and up, from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Food Bank, 7900 Edgewater Drive, Oakland. Registration required. 635-3665, ext. 308. 

Back to the Schoolhouse Health and safety information for children ages 6-12 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Jack London Square. Activities include fingerprinting by the Oakland Police Dept., interactive games and live entertainment. www.jacklondonsquare.com 

San Antonio Community Resource Fair, with games, arts and crafts, community information from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at San Antonio Park, 1701 E. 19th St., Oakland. www.sannoakland.org 

Jazzy Tomatoes at the Saturday Berkeley Farmers’ Market with music and tomato dishes from noon to 3 p.m. at Center St. at MLK Jr. Way. 548-3333. 

Nevin Park Groundbreaking Ceremony and 15th Annual Iron Triangle Community Picnic with a New Orleans style procession at 11 a.m. and picnic at noon at Nevin Park, Macdonald Ave. and Sixth St., Richomnd. 307-8150. Jacqueline_vaca@ci.richmond.ca.us 

Solo Sierrans Hike in Huckleberry Botanical and Redwood Regional Parks Meet at 10 a.m. at Huckleberry Staging Area south of Sibley, about 1/2 mile on Skyline Blvd. in Oakland for a leisurely six-hour hike with some steep climbs, views and trees. 925-691-6303. 

Hopalong Animal Rescue Come meet your furry new best friend. Cats and kittens avalable for adoption from noon to 3 p.m. at Your Basic Bird, 2940 College Ave. 267-1915, ext. 500. 

Ear Acupuncture for Stress Relief and Detox from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Pharmaca, 1744 Solano Ave. 

Girls Fast Pitch Softball tryouts for Bears Softball Assoc., on Sat. and Sun. For information call 748-0611. www.bears-softball.com 

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

Hamster Adoption Fair Learn about these little pets and help one find a good home, from 1 to 4 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 26 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Jingletown Meet at 10 a.m. next to Mary Help of Christians Church, east 9th and 26th Ave. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

“Peace with Justice: Prison Reform” with Laura Mangini at 10:30 a.m. at Easter Hill United Methodist Church, 3911 Cutting Blvd. Richmond. 233-0777. 

“Art in the Park” Exhibition hosted by the City of Alameda, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Jackson Park, 2430 Encinal Ave., Alameda. arpd@ci.alameda.ca.us  

Oak Grove Music Festival Celebrating 268 days of tree occupation, from 1 to 7 p.m. at the Memorial Oak Grove, Piedmont at Bancroft. 938-2109. www.SaveOaks.com 

Auditions for “Little Mary Sunshine” at 1 p.m. at Masqueers Playhouse 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Please prepare a 32-bar up-tempo showtune. 415-465-5550. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, Julia Morgan’s “little castle” at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:15 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. Free, donations welcome. 883-9710. 

Sew Your Own Open Studio from 5 to 9 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Drive, Aquatic Park. Our workshop has industrial and domestic machines and tools which you can come learn to use or work on your own projects in a social setting. Cost is $3 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

MONDAY, AUGUST 27 

Potter Creek Concerned Neighbors A meeting of neighbors and businesses against the formation of the West Berkeley Community Benefits District (CBD) at 7 p.m. at Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley (French School), 1009 Heinz Ave. at 9th. 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. 2 to 6 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Drive, Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

Rally for Justice for Woodfin Workers at 6 p.m. outside Emeryville City Hall, then show your support at the 7 p.m. City of Emeryville Appeal Hearing. www.woodfinwatch.org 

Auditions for Contra Costa Chorale at 7:15 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito. 527-2026. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 28 

Full Moon Walk at John Muir National Historic Site Walk up Mt. Wanda to see the moon rise over Mt. Diablo. Bring water, flashlight and good walking shoes for the steep trail. Reservations required. 925-228-8860. 

“Baraka” a film of images from 24 countries showing the beauty and destruction of nature and humans at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra Auditions at 4 p.m. at the Crowden School. For information on what to prepare and to make an appointment call 849-988. www.ypsomusic.net 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Free Sewing Class for Youth at Sew Your Own, from 3 to 6 p.m. at Bolivar Drive, Aquatic Park. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

Tuesday Documentaries at 7 p.m. at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Donation of $5 benefits the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. 665-0305. 

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Tues., Thurs., and Sat. from 2 to 6 p.m. Open bicycle repair lab at Waterside Workshops, 84 Bolivar Drive, Aquatic Park. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Recording African American Stories Add your voice to the Library of Congress and the National Museum of African American History, Wed. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., by appointment, at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, through Sept. 12. For appointment call 228-3207. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at East Pauley Ballroom MLK Student Union, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com  

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “Needs Assessment in Public Health” by Peterson and Alexander at 6:30 p.m. Call for location. 433-2911. 

Ice Cream Social for Seniors at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Pax Nomada Bike Ride Meet at 6 p.m. at Nomad Cafe for a 15-25 mile ride up to through the Berkeley hills. All levels of cyclists welcome. 595-5344. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 30 

Berkeley/Albany Mental Health Services Implementation Progress Report A Public Hearing at 7 p.m. at the Mental Health Auditorium, 2640 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way at Derby. Copies of the report are availble, call 981-7698. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 4 to 5 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

Get Involved with Your Local Green Party Meeting at 7 p.m. at the Grassroots House, 2022 Blake between Shattuck & Milvia. www.berkeleygreens.org  

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra Auditions at 4 p.m. at the Crowden School. For information on what to prepare and to make an appointment call 849-988. www.ypsomusic.net 

Free Diabetes Screening Come find out if you might have diabetes with our free screening test and make sure not to eat or drink anything for 8 hours beforehand, from 8:45 to noon at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, 200 Grand Ave. 981-5332. 

Baby and Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave, Kensington. 524-3043. 

ONGOING 

Campaign for Earthquake Victims in Peru To find the collection site closest to you call Paco at 229-8350 or the Consulate of Peru 1-877-490-7378.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21 

CHILDREN 

Puppet Art Theater for ages 3 and up at 6:30 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave, Kensington. 524-3043. 

FILM 

A Theater Near You “High and Low” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Herb Kohl describes “Painting Chinese: A Lifelong Teacher Gains the Wisdom of Youth” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Scraptet, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jackie Ryan, featuring Red Holloway, at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $6-$12. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22 

FILM 

Eco-Amok: An Inconvenient Film Fest “Meet the Applegates” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Writing Teachers Write” Teacher/student readings from the Bay Area Writing Project, with Jane Juska, Meredith Baxter and Claire Noonan at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Snake Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Karl Perazzo, Bobby Allende & John Dandy Rodriguez, percussion salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Brass Mafia at 5 p.m., Natasha Miller at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Mikie Lee and Amber at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Erika Luckett at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Robert Glasper at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 

FILM 

Abbas Kiarostami “ABC Africa” at 7 p.m. and “Five” at 8:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Oakland Out Loud Poetry Reading with John Curl, Trena Machado, Jeanne Lupton and Rosa Martin Villareal at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, 125 14th St., Oakland. 238-3134. 

Dana Ward, Alli Warren and David Larsen, poets, read at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Eric Gower describes experimentation in the kitchen in “The Breakaway Cook” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Victoria Tatum reads from her novel “The Virgin’s Children” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Winard Harper Sextet at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

Goat Hall Productions Cabaret Operas “The Playboy of the Western World” and “Dionysus” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 201 Broadway at Jack London Square, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$25. 415-289-6877. 

“Our American Cousin” an opera about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln with the University Chamber Chorus at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. 

Freight 19th Annual Fiddle Summit, with Alasdair Fraser, Annbjørg Lien, Catriona MacDonald and Laura Risk at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Eric Jekabson & Darren Johnston at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Temescallionaires, old-time tunes, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Dark Smile, Friendship First, Daniel Popsickle Orchestra, The Noodles at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Antioquia at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

James Carter at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Terrence Brewer Trio at 5 p.m., Space Heater at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277 

Zadell at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Hot Club at 6 p.m. at La Note, 2377 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $40, includes dinner. 843-1525. 

Maldroid at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Hysteria” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Sept. 30. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “The Triumph of Love” at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through Sept. 2. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

“Citizen Josh” with monologoist Josh Kornbluth, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison St., through Spet. 2. Tickets are $25-$30. 647-2949. 

Masquers Playhouse “The Shadow Box” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through Sept. 29. This show is not recommended for children.Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org  

TheaterInSearch “Epic of Gilgamesh” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Sept. 2. Tickets are $12-$20. 262-0584. 

Viaticum “The Carnal Table” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. through Sept. 2. Tickets are $10-$15. 848-3338. 

FILM 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “First on the Moon” at 7 p.m. and “To the Stars by Hard Ways” at 8:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Curl reads from his new novelistic memoir, “Memories of Drop City: The First Hippie Commune of the 1960s and the Summer of Love” at 7:30 p.m. at The Book Zoo, 6395 Telegraph Ave., at Alcatraz, Oakland. 654-2665. 

Greil Marcus describes “The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

An Evening with Drew Dellinger, poetry, at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, Reidenbach Hall, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Tickets are $20. 451-4926. www.earthlight.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Goat Hall Productions Cabaret Operas “The Playboy of the Western World” and “Dionysus” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro Operahouse, 201 Broadway at Jack London Square, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$25. 415-289-6877. 

Unsmokables, vocal and instrumental improvisation at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568.  

E.W. Wainwright’s African Roots of Jazz perform “The Social Evolution of Jazz” at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Eric Swinderman, In Pursuit of Sound at 7 p.m. at Bobby G’s Pizzeria, 2072 University Ave. 665-8866.  

Pete Escovedo & Ray Obiedo Latin Jazz Project at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Wellman-Savage Unit featuring Walter Savage-bass, Angela Wellman-trombone, at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St. Cost is $15. 836-4649. 

Brave Combo, rock, polka, jazz, Tex-Mex, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Walter Pope at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

The Waybacks at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Robin Galante, Mario DeSio and Kwame Copeland at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Jazzschool Summer Program Youth and Faculty Concerts at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

GG Elvfis & The TCP Band, The Abuse at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Sentinel at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Sila & the Afro Funk Experience at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Beep! Trio at 5 p.m., Bill Ortiz Band at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Steve E Nix, Rock and Roll Adventure Kids at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

James Carter at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 25 

CHILDREN  

Puppet Theater Fesitval “Why Mosquitos Buzz in Our Ears” Sat. and Sun. at noon and Pinocchio: The Hip-Hopera at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave. 452-2259. 

THEATER 

Shotgun Players “The Three Musketeers” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkle Park, Southampton Ave., off The Arlington, through Sept. 9. Free. 841-6500. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Mark Axelrod “Sticks and Stones Not Only Break Bones” oil paintings, and Linda Braz “Explorations” mixed media installations and sketches. Party and benefit auction at 7 p.m. at The Gallery Of Urban Art, 1746 13th St. Oakland. 706-1697. 

FILM 

Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker “Where is the Friend’s Home?” at 6:30 p.m. and “Homework” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Danny Caron at 7 p.m. at Bobby G’s Pizzeria, 2072 University Ave. 665-8866.  

Jeff Zittrain, Americana rock, at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

Carne Cruda and Rico Pabon at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $6-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Kenny Washington & His Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Baba Ken & Kotoja at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson at 9 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

DJ Real and Paulette at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Loosewig Quartet at 1 p.m., Sonanado Project at 5 p.m. and Agualibre at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WCS Songwriter Showcase Grand Finals at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Royal Hawaiian Serenaders at 9 p.m. at Temple Bar Tiki Bar & Grill, 984 University Ave. 548-9888. 

Jazz Fourtet at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Strange Angels at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Winters & Davis, Montana at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

The Botticellis, Winter’s Fall, Pickwick at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Nausea, Moral Decay, In Disgust at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 26 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley Art Center 24th Annual National Juried Exhibition Opening reception at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut Street in Live Oak Park, between Eunice and Rose. 644-9873. 

“Everyday Magic” paintings by Jan Wurm and Suma Shawn, and drawings and welded steel sculpture by Joseph Slusky, opens with a reception at 5 p.m. at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates. Ashby Ave. 204-1667.  

Berkeley’s “Other” Revolution: Celebrating 35 Years of Independent Living, Disability Access, and Disability Rights. Photographs by Ken Stein on display in the windows of Rasputin Music, 2401 Telegraph Ave., between Channing Way and Haste. 525-2325. 

“Art in the Park” Exhibition hosted by the City of Alameda, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Jackson Park, 2430 Encinal Ave., Alameda. arpd@ci.alameda.ca.us  

FILM 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “Solaris” at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Down Home Music Opening in Berkeley with Barbara Dane, Tri Tip Trio Zydeco Band, Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum, Eric & Suzy Thompson, Los Cenzontles, Nina Gerber and others from 12:30 to 5 p.m. at 1809 B Fourth St. 204-9595. 

Oak Grove Music Festival Celebrating 268 days of tree occupation, from 1 to 7 p.m. at the Memorial Oak Grove, Piedmont at Bancroft. 938-2109. www.SaveOaks.com 

Breslin and Alex, folk-rock, at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mark Levine Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Edo Castro at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Will Blades/Eddie Marshall Duo at 1 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Dani Torres, flamenco, at 5 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Americana Unplugged: The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Unreal Band, David Elias, Sabrosa and others from 1 to 7 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 27 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Express Open mic theme night on “dreams” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Maria Mikheyenko, Russian songs, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Musica ha Disconnesso at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Tiempo Libre at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. 

Remember when classical musicians were called “long hairs”? Maybe not. Ever since Jim Morrison replaced Tony Bennett in the popular music world the epithet has lost its meaning. Needless to say the Bay Area is long in classical music venues and musicians, long haired or not. Here’s the short list. 

Oakland East Bay Symphony 

The Oakland East Bay Symphony is housed in the Paramount Theater, redolent of gold paint, Art Deco trim and times past. The symphony, directed by Michael Morgan, presents six programs of music during the season. This year opens Nov. 9 with popular works by Beethoven and Leonard Bernstein.  

The program also features the gorgeous soprano Hope Briggs performing arias by Wagner, Puccini and Verdi. Later concerts include work by contemporary Chinese composers Tan Dun and Jon Jang, as well as 20th-century Iranian composers Aminollah Hossein and Loris Tjeknavorian’s unusual blending of western and Middle Eastern musical traditions.  

OEBS continues its fifth season of Magnum Opus, one of the largest commissioning projects of new symphonic works in the U.S. Sponsored by Kathryn Gould through Meet the Composer, Inc., it makes grants to the Santa Rosa, Marin and Oakland East Bay symphonies to jointly commission, premiere and perform nine new works by American composers over five years. For tickets and information, call 444-0801 or visit www.oebs.org. Subscription series available. Single tickets, $70-$25. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra 

Under the leadership of Kent Nagano, the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra has received numerous ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, including five out of the past six seasons, while offering cycles of modern, Classical and Romantic music by Bruckner, Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann among others. 

Nagano has since moved on to become music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, but he remains connected to the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, directing the Berkeley Akademie Ensemble in December as well as the symphony’s season opener at the end of January.  

The remaining three concerts are led by international conductors Hugo Wolff, Guillermo Figueroa and Laura Jackson, each with an individual program of 19th-and 20th-century music featuring at least one contemporary composer. 

For tickets and information, call 841-2800 or visit www.berkeleysymphony.org. Single tickets, $40, $60; students, $20, 

Berkeley Chamber Performances 

This organization presents a variety of outstanding local—and some farther afield—chamber groups such as the Maybeck Trio, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble and the Debussy Trio in an intimate setting at a jaw-droppingly low price. Held at the lovely Julia Morgan-designed Berkeley City Club, the concerts are followed by a reception. Preconcert meals are also available by calling the Berkeley City Club at 848-7800. For information and tickets, call 525-5211 or visit www.chamberperform.org. $20. 

Cal Performances 

Presenting a staggering variety of theatrical and dance events, Cal Performances also presents recitals, chamber music and, best of all, contemporary composer portraits. Last year’s performance, in their “20th Century Music and Beyond” series, of work by Conlon Nancarrow played by the dazzling Alarm Will Sound was fun, fantastic and as challenging as it gets in the world of contemporary music. This year they’re celebrating UC professor and distinguished composer Jorge Liderman’s 50th birthday. For information and tickets, call 642-9988 or visit www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. 

San Francisco Performances 

For more excellent recital and chamber music events, hop on that BART and make it over to Herbst Theater (Civic Center stop). All the events I went to last year—recitals from baritones Gerald Finley and Christopher Maltman to instrumental soloist Steven Isserlis and composer Thomas Ades playing piano—were only two-thirds full. And that is a shame. For information and tickets, call (415) 392-2545 or visit www.performances.org. 

Garden of Memory 

Speaking of fun, the new music multiple walk-through summer solstice event presented by New Music Bay Area and Chapel of the Chimes that rocks out at the Oakland columbarium is another do-not-miss event. In the labyrinthine Julia Morgan-designed columbarium and mausoleum stuffed with gardens, fountains, and stained-glass skylights, you can hear music from Krystina Bobrowski and Karen Stackpole to Amy X. Neuburg to Terry Riley and Sarah Cahill. Sadly, it’s only once a year. For information, call New Music Bay Area at (415) 563-6355. General, $12; students and seniors, $8. 

Philharmonia Baroque 

For early music buffs, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra is dedicated to historically informed performances of Baroque, Classical and early-Romantic music played on original instruments. Regularly heard on tour in the United States and internationally, the San Francisco-based PBO regularly plays around the Bay Area in Berkeley, San Francisco and Palo Alto. In addition to their Music Director Nicholas McGegan, the orchestra welcomes eminent guest conductors, as well as vocalists and soloists to perform in a new program each month. For information, call (415) 252-1288 or visit www.philharmonia.org. $30-$72. 

UC Music Department 

With three series that provide a wide range of classical music from western European to Asian to ethnic music, the university music department’s Noon Concerts are hard to beat in the category of free. This year’s concert series includes German lieder, songs by African American composers, Baroque harpsichord, Gospel and Gamelan. Regular performances of the University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Milnes, are scheduled at Hearst Hall; the symphony’s September evening concert includes Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances ($12, $8, $4). For information and tickets, call 642-4864 or go to music.berkeley.edu/noon.html. Free or close to it. 

For jazz fans new to the Bay Area, Berkeley is a unique jazz scene. In Manhattan, in any given week, two or three major jazz musicians will be appearing in various clubs all over the island. When I was last there in December 2005, we managed to catch avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor uptown at the Iridium and hardbop trombonist Curtis Fuller at a downtown hotel in the same week. In the Bay Area, internationally famous jazz musicians are rarer, but the local jazz scene is vigorous.  

The lynchpin for much of Berkeley’s jazz activity is the JazzSchool, headed by pianist Susan Muscarella, which offers classes and workshops, shopping, and live performances in a restaurant/nightclub setting. The school is the producer of the upcoming Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival featuring 45 events in 15 venues over five days. These performances are free and all of them will give you an idea of the range of jazz going on locally as well as a sense of the kinds of clubs that feature jazz in Berkeley. 

Among the best are Anna’s Jazz Island which is aggressive about booking jazz and has featured such well-known players as Steve Turré during the last year; the JazzSchool’s own Jazzcaffé, which also has an active jazz booking policy featuring instructors and students as well as guest musicians like Wallace Roney on occasion; and the sponsor of this year’s festival, Jupiter, which presented an excellent set from John Schott’s Dream Kitchen at last year’s festival. 

In May, Berkeley has a free festival on Fourth Street that usually features a star or two and the best of Berkeley High School’s award-winning jazz orchestras and combos. The proceeds go to benefit the Berkeley public school jazz program which, over the years, has produced David Murray, Benny Green, Peter Apfelbaum and Joshua Redman.  

If you really want to keep up with the Bay Area jazz scene, you will need to stop by, phone or e-mail Rick Ballard’s Groove Yard Jazz Shop. Rick sends out a more or less monthly e-newsletter that covers jazz appearances at all local venues, jam sessions, new recordings, jazz on the radio and more. If you go into the store, at 5555 Claremont in Oakland, you can also find a wide range of jazz LPs and CDs, both new and used. You can find jazz recordings at most record stores, but the Groove Yard is devoted to jazz only and Rick is both knowledgeable and passionate about this music. 

The top jazz club in the Bay Area is Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West in Oakland’s Jack London Square. To give some idea of the quality of music to be heard there, during the last two years, Yoshi’s has presented vibist Gary Burton featuring guitarist Julian Lage (who was back at Yoshi’s on Aug. 7 with Anton Schwartz); pianist and Oakland native Carla Bley with longtime musical compatriot, bassist Steve Swallow; a Clifford Brown 75th birthday memorial celebration featuring tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, pianist Mulgrew Miller and four virtuosic trumpeters; another Oakland native, violinist Regina Carter; a second visit from Golson; a thrilling quintet led by pianist Cedar Walton and featuring trombonist Steve Turre and tenor saxophonist Vincent Herring; jazz composer and pianist Randy Weston with tenor sax great Billy Harper; and NPR radio personality and classic pianist Marian McPartland. This weel Yoshi’s is featuring reed giant James Carter.  

The only other time and place that the Bay Area gets to hear jazz of that caliber is during the San Francisco Jazz Festival which has both an autumn and a spring edition. The festival takes place in various clubs and halls throughout the Bay Area, occasionally jumping across our little pond to play Oakland’s Paramount Theatre. Over the last two years the Festival has featured the World Saxophone Quartet playing the music of Jimi Hendrix at the Great American Music Hall; Don Byron returning to his klezmer roots at the Palace of Fine Arts; Broadway great Barbara Cook singing Berlin, Arlen, Rodgers, Bernstein and Sondheim at Davies Hall; Ornette Coleman giving a magnificently lyrical performance at the Masonic Auditorium; septuagenarian tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins finding renewed inspiration, again at the Masonic; Tootie and Jimmy Heath, the two surviving Heath Brothers, playing brilliantly at Herbst Theatre; Andrew Hill, since deceased, along with trumpeter Charles Tolliver giving a touching final concert at Herbst; pianist, harpist, organist Alice Coltrane, sadly, also since deceased, with marvelous support from bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Roy Haynes, giving what was to be her farewell concert at the Masonic; and trombonist Roswell Rudd along with Mongolian musicians and throat singers in a remarkable concert at the Legion of Honor. Watch for saxophonists Ornette Coleman, Pharaoh Sanders and Paquito D’Rivera at this fall’s festival starting in September. 

As you can see, Berkeley may not be Manhattan, but we are by no means starved for great jazz here in the Bay Area. 

For more information on the Groove Yard Jazz Shop call 655-8400 or email groove2@earthlink.net. For more information on Yoshi’s call 238-9200 or go to www.yoshi’s.com. For more information on the SFJazz Festival call 866-920-5299 or go to www.sfjazz.org. For more information on the Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival call the JazzSchool at 845-5373 or go to www.dbjf.org.

Jupiter, the popular Shattuck Avenue beerhouse, presents the ambitious third annual Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival beginning this Wednesday and running through Sunday, Aug. 25. 

The event, made possible by the Downtown Berkeley Association and produced by the JazzSchool, features 45 musical events at 15 venues all over downtown Berkeley. In addition to every genre of jazz, there will also be poetry readings and a photographic exhibition.  

Besides Jupiter, the other participating venues are Anna’s Jazz Island, the JazzSchool, Shattuck Down Low, La Note, Bobby G’s Pizzeria, Caltopia, BART Plaza and the Farmer’s Market, plus photography at Berkeley Public Library, poetry readings at Berkeley City College and Half Price Books, and a poetry slam at GAIA Arts. The variety of music represented includes bebop, cabaret vocals, reggae, hip hop, blues, free form, African, Latin, funk and soul.  

The artists performing include some of the best local performers as well as luminaries like Pete Escovedo who will be featured with Ray Obiedo and The Urban Latin Jazz Project at Anna’s, classic drummer Eddie Marshall along with Wil Blades at Jupiter, clarinetist Ben Goldberg with Myra Melford, Devin Hoff and Scott Amendola at the JazzSchool, the jazz images of Yoshi’s house photographer Stuart Brinin at the Berkeley Public Library and California poet laureate Al Young and Beat Generation legend Michael McClure at Half Price Books. 

Many of these events are free and provide an opportunity to check out the great cuisine of Berkeley’s restaurants, read the poems inscribed in the sidewalk on Addison Street and find out what kind of jazz is being played locally and what kind you like. 

Also in town this week is the magnificent reed player James Carter. When I first heard then 26-year-old Carter at the old Yoshi’s on Claremont in 1995, it was how I imagined it would have been to have heard Charlie Parker in 1945 or Ornette Coleman in 1960. Although I was too young to have experienced the halcyon days of bop or free jazz, I did see Roland Kirk in 1965, Archie Shepp in 1966 and John Coltrane in 1967. Carter had that same kind of energy, as if you were present at the birth of something new and exciting, something that could make you begin all over again. My notes from that first Bay Area appearance by Carter include the words: beautiful, remarkable, phenomenal freedom, weird, experimental, totally accessible, unending stream of ideas, incredible, passionate. This was such heady stuff as dreams are made on. 

Since then, Carter has visited the Bay Area often and has released many excellent albums, though none of them have been able to capture what I heard that night at Yoshi’s. For that matter, Carter’s live performances have never quite reached the heights he did at his Yoshi’s première. His technical abilities are unparalleled whether he’s playing any of the saxophones (soprano, f mezzo, alto, tenor, baritone, bass), clarinet, bass clarinet or flute. No performance is without rewarding moments, but no performance has ever seemed as fully-realized, as immediate, as that initial experience. Still, he is the only player of his generation who I would never miss seeing.  

The last two appearances of Carter’s at Yoshi’s that I caught were in April and July 2004. The earlier set included a volcanic tenor solo on “Don’s Idea,” when he seemed to be channeling tenor saxophone great Don Byas, and an overly-intentional performance of “Strange Fruit.” The performance, although sincere, was so literary, dramatic, historical and emotional that it became something less than musical. The July show had him as the added guest with the Django Reinhardt Project and included both amazing soprano work as well as some smoky, swaggering tenor. 

Jazz musicians have always surprised fans by looking at overlooked, forgotten or taken for granted elements of their own tradition for new directions. As we arrive at the fifth generation of this unique music, we see all of these elements of renewal, surprise and the simultaneous tension of conservative synthesis and revolutionary exploration in the playing of Carter. Whether he plays in the galvanic manner of a genie who has just popped out of a lamp or in a more conventionally romantic-melodic style, Carter is the most promising player of his generation and what he plays is cutting edge jazz. 

For a complete listing of all the events of the Third Annual Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival, check the Planet’s Arts Calendar or call the Festival at 845-5373 or see www.dbjf.org. James Carter appears at Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland from Thursdaythrough Sunday with shows at 8 and 10 p.m., except on Sundays when they are at 7 and 9 p.m. For more information call 238-9200 or see www.yoshis.com. 

Access to culture shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg, or even an ear. Many Bay Area museums follow the enlightened practice of waiving admission for one day every month—sometimes more often. And a handful are always free.  

First, take a look soon at Berkeley’s on-the-street Addison Street Window Gallery, always free and on view any time, day or night, from the sidewalk at 2018 Addison Street, between Shattuck and Milvia. Until August 25, there’s a special exhibit, “Art for Humanity,” organized by Evelyn Glaubman of Berkeley City College with city college alumni, featuring paintings inspired by the U.N.’s Millenium Development Goals.  

Some others: 

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive: First Thursday of the month, including 5:30 p.m. PFA screening; always free to UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff. 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. 

Berkeley Historical Society History Center: (permanent and rotating exhibits on local history) Free every day. Thursday through Saturday, 1-4 p.m. Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. 848-0181, www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc. 

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology: Free every day; docent tours $5 adults, $2 children. Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Sunday 12 pm-4 p.m. 102 Kroeber Hall (corner of Bancroft and College). (510) 642-3682, hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu. 

Oakland Museum of California: Second Sunday of the month. Fee required for special exhibits. 100 Oak St., Oakland. 238-2200, www.museumca.org. 

Mills College Art Museum: Free every day, hours vary, closed Monday. 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland. 430-2164, 

www.mills.edu/campus_life/art_museum. 

Richmond Museum of History: Free every day, Wednesday through Sunday, 1-4 p.m. 400 Nevin Ave., Richmond. 235-7387, www.richmondmuseumofhistory.org. 

Golden State Model Railroad Museum: Free Saturday and Sunday noon-5 p.m., Wednesday 11 a.m.-3 p.m. (open April-December; trains run Sunday only). 900-A Dornan Drive, Point Richmond. 234-4484, www.gsmrm.org. 

Alameda Museum: Free every day (donations encouraged). Wednesday-Sunday, hours vary. 2324 Alameda Ave. near Park Street, Alameda. 521-1233, www.alamedamuseum.org. 

Hayward Area Historical Society Downtown Museum: Free every day. 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday. 22701 Main St., Hayward. 581-0223, www.haywardareahistory.org/downtownmuseum.asp. 

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: First Tuesday of the month, 11 a.m.-5:45 p.m. after Labor Day. 151 Third St. between Mission and Howard, San Francisco. (415)357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 

California Academy of Sciences: First Wednesday of the month, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 875 Howard St. between Fourth and Fifth, San Francisco. 321-8000, www.calacademy.org. 

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco: First Tuesday of the month, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 200 Larkin Street between Fulton and McAllister, San Francisco. (415)581-3500, www.asianart.org. 

De Young Museum: First Tuesday of the month. Fee required for special exhibits. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. (415) 750-3600, www.thinker.org/deyoung. 

Legion of Honor: First Tuesday of the month.Fee required for special exhibits. Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue and Clement Street, San Francisco. (415) 863-3330, www.thinker.org/legion. 

Exploratorium: First Wednesday of the month (reservations required for groups of 10 or more), 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 3601 Lyon Street, San Francisco. (415) 561-0399, www.exploratorium.edu. 

Yes, we still miss Cody’s on Telegraph. The whole bookstore scene remains precarious. Black Oak has retrenched, and the future of its Berkeley store appears uncertain. Even the big chains aren’t immune, as witness the fate of the Shattuck Avenue Barnes & Noble.  

But some bookbuyers are still keeping the independents alive. Berkeley is home to a whole constellation of bookstores, generalist and specialist, used and new, with something for just about everyone—and then there’s Oakland and San Francisco. 

Moe’s Books (2476 Telegraph) alone still justifies a visit to the block where Cody’s used to be. This Berkeley institution, the creation of the late Moe Moskowitz, whose cigar-chomping likeness is prominently displayed, remains the used-book Mecca. Moe’s prices are reasonable, and the stock is always changing (they often buy personal libraries, and reviewers’ copies of new hardbacks show up regularly). There are new titles downstairs at a discount, rarities and collectables on the fourth floor, and remainders throughout. 

Also worth cruising for used books is Black Oak (1491 Shattuck), although prices are a bit on the high side; watch for readings and other author events. Half Price Books (2036 Shattuck), part of an Austin-based chain, is a crapshoot, but I’ve found some real bargains there. Pegasus (1855 Solano), Pegasus Downtown (2349 Shattuck), and Pendragon (5560 College, in Oakland) make up a local mini-chain; mostly used, with a good stock of remainders and notable first-of-the-year calendar sales.  

The Friends of the Berkeley Public Library store (one location in the main library at 2090 Kittredge; another at 2433 Channing, hidden in the ground floor of a parking garage off Telegraph) is another place where almost anything may turn up, and astonishingly cheap. 

But if you’re willing to spring for new-book prices, there are lots of options. The Fourth Street Cody’s (1730 Fourth Street) is still around. University Press Books (2430 Bancroft) is just what it says it is, with a few titles from non-academic presses. It might be just the place to find that specialized tome on Byzantine hermeneutics. Mrs. Dalloway’s (2904 College) has strong gardening, poetry, and natural history sections, a choice selection of general titles, and its own author events—as does Diesel (5433 College, Oakland). Builder’s Booksource (1817 Fourth Street) specializes in architecture and design, with an impressive gardening section. 

Other Berkeley and Oakland stores reflect the East Bay’s cultural diversity: Marcus Books (3900 Martin Luther King) for African-American history, culture, and literature; Change Makers (6536 Telegraph, Oakland) for feminist books; Eastwind (2066 University) for Asian and Asian-American subjects; Afikomen (3042 Claremont) for Jewish-interest books. Although not a bookstore per se, the Spanish Table (1814 San Pablo) sells cookbooks and other works on Iberian and Latin American culture. 

You can buy legal advice in handy book form at the Nolo Press store (950 Parker). For jazz aficionados, the The Basement @ JazzSchool (2087 Addison) purveys books and records. Down Home Music (10341 San Pablo, El Cerrito, and now on Fourth Street, too) has an extensive book section. Mr. Mopps (1405 Martin Luther King) has books for children. And don’t forget genre fiction: for science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery, as well as plush Cthulus and Monty Python action figures, there’s Dark Carnival (3086 Claremont) and Other Change of Hobbit (2020 Shattuck). 

Reflecting a certain ambivalence, Walden Pond (3316 Grand) calls itself “a Berkeley bookstore in Oakland.” It has one of the East Bay’s best selections of new political/cultural titles, many from independent publishers, in addition to used books. Other Oakland used-book outlets include Spectator (4163 Piedmont), Black Swan (4236 Piedmont), and Bibliomania (1816 Telegraph). The Friends of the Oakland Public Library run their own store, the Bookmark (721 Washington). For new books, try the Book Tree and A Great Good Place of Books in Montclair (both on LaSalle Avenue) and Laurel Bookstore in, where else, the Laurel District (4100 MacArthur).  

Across the bay, San Francisco’s answer to Moe’s is Green Apple (506 Clement), a labyrinthine warren of mostly used books; the new stuff is downstairs. Kerouac and Ginsberg fans will want to make a pilgrimage to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books (261 Columbus). Modern Times (888 Valencia) works the political side of the street. For a Chaplin trifecta, Limelight (1803 Market) specializes in the theater arts. Alexander Books (50 2nd Street) has strong African-American literature and poetry sections. Kinokuniya (1581 Webster, in the Nihonmachi Center) offers Japanese titles in both Japanese and English. In the Mission, Dog Eared Books (900 Valencia) and Needles and Pens (3253 16th) showcase zines and independent publications, and Borderlands (866 Valencia) covers science fiction and related genres. And old reliable Stacey’s is still downtown (581 Market).  

This just scratches the surface, of course. There are noteworthy independent bookstores on the Peninsula (Kepler’s, back from the grave!), east of the Caldecott Tunnel (Bonanza Street Books in Walnut Creek), and north of the Golden Gate. The obituaries for the non-chain brick-and-mortar bookseller may be premature. But for God’s sake, get out there and buy some books!

The shoreline cities of La Contra Costa, the old East Bay, share a surprising concentration of theatrical activity, both major companies and small troupes, in a Bay Area theater scene which comprises a stunning number: over 400 companies, according to San Francisco’s Theater Bay Area (whose eponymous monthly magazine is the best overall window on that sprawling stage landscape). 

Both of the year-round, fully professional companies here (which hire Equity actors, union members) are situated cheek-by-jowl on Addison, right off Shattuck, near the Downtown Berkeley BART: Berkeley Repertory Theatre (with both the Thrust Stage and the Roda Theatre) and the Aurora.  

The Rep features both classics, modern and period (though even postwar pieces like Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller now seem like period works), and contemporary plays of mixed merit, even work that’s in development, as well as touring shows of different styles (American Rep’s fine Oliver Twist and Mike Daisey’s quaternity of solo pieces Great Men of Genius played side-by-side earlier this summer).  

The Aurora, founded by Barbara Oliver, who sometimes returns to direct, generally has a much more focused repertoire of classics (compelling versions of Ibsen, Pinter and Aeschylus have been seen over the past couple of years), along with more variable recent fare—though this may be changing somewhat with the ascension of Tom Ross, previously managing director, to the artistic chair a couple years back. The Aurora prides itself on actor-driven productions in its intimate setting, often employing directors like Joy Carlin, herself a noted actress, to stage sometimes offbeat work by Arthur Miller or David Mamet. 

The other resident year-round company in town is a local favorite that plays a different card altogether. Shotgun Players acquired the Ashby Stage—across from Ashby BART—just a couple of years ago, and also perform a free show during the summer at John Hinkel park in the North Berkeley hills. (This year’s hit, The Three Musketeers, is ongoing.)  

Shotgun is characterized by a youthful exuberance, a community-oriented “can-do” approach that impells them to mount material from across the dramaturgical map, with mixed results. They’ve collaborated with all and sundry, hosting shows by other troupes, and have provided the boost for a number of regional reputations and hit plays. 

There are other residential troupes in town who produce on a smaller scale, though in the case of Central Works in particular, resident at the Julia Morgan-designed Berkeley City Club on Durant (which features other companies’ productions as well), the artistic merits ofen match, even exceed, those of the larger companies. Founded by playwright (as well as director and sometime-performer) Gary Graves and actor-director Jan Zvaifler, Central Works has a unique method of collaborative development of shows, besides a high quality of acting and stagecraft in the City Club salon’s intimacy. Admission is always very reasonable, based on a sliding scale of prices. 

Other smaller—and reasonably priced—resident companies include Berkeley Actors Ensemble, the oldest company in town, celebrating their 50th year, resident at Live Oak Theatre in Live Oak Park on Shattuck, past the North Berkeley shopping district. A community theater, Actors Ensemble’s repertory is wide-ranging and the company draws on a range of talents to produce it, with a noticeable upswing in quality during the past year or so. 

Impact Theater, in the basement at LaVal’s Pizza on Euclid, just north of campus, produces varying fare of full length shows, solo acts and “Briefs,” shorter vaudeville-type pieces with contemporary burlesque dancing. Inexpensive and billing itself as the only venue in town where patrons can watch a play while eating pizza and drinking beer, Impact draws heavily on the student crowd, though there’s been more generational range recently in their audiences—and sometimes surprises in their repertoire, exceeding their expressed goal of sheer entertainment. 

Other small companies, those without a theater to call a regular home, produce at other venues, and often develop a reputation for innovating. Among these, the most original is Ten Red Hen, officially based in Oakland, but producing their two major shows at the Willard Metalshop Theater in the rear of the school complex on Telegraph. The 99-Cent Miss Saigon and the original scriptural musical revue, Clown Bible, were intelligent, refreshing and fun—and very reasonably priced (Ten Red Hen makes a point of refusing nobody at the door).  

Ragged Wing Ensemble is due to produce Andre Gregory’s (of Dinner with André fame) Alice in Wonderland soon in Oakland. A skillful physical theater troupe, truly an ensemble with several star performers to its credit, Ragged Wing is worth keeping an eye on.  

Wilde Irish, noted for its Bloomsday celebrations of James Joyce’s Ulysses, stages Irish plays, mostly at the City Club, with style and manner worthy of the old Abbey and Gate Theatres of Dublin fame--and at reasonable rates. 

For several years Oakland’s only resident company, intrepid TheatreFIRST, after a season that saw two splendid productions of rarely-staged masterworks (Lessing’s Nathan the Wise and John Arden’s Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance), lost its lease in Old Oakland, but continues in its mission to mount socially aware material in professionally artistic style (and at very reasonable sliding scale), going into its 14th season. 

Oakland’s Darvag has staged showsfor adultsand children in English and Farsi, introducing important Iranian work, both popular and high culture. 

In Alameda, Virago continues to innovate, with a repertoire that runs from Threepenny Opera in cabaret style to locally-penned plays of merit, well-directedand performed—and reasonably priced. Also in Alameda is venerable Altarena, nominally a community theater, but with a broad repertoire—and a range of talents--to draw from, going from family musicals to fare like Sue Trigg’s remarkable production of Death of a Salesman awhile back. 

Contra Costa Civic Theatre in El Cerrito is a well-run house, featuring well-staged productions of musicals and plays, comic and dramatic. Like other community theaters in name, their results are surprisingly non-amateurish. 

Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond is another proud community theater, and another which stages shows in its own considerable style, from Jean Anouilh’s moral comedies to Sondheim musicals to thrillers. Their productions have a charm particular to this old troupe. 

Other companies besides Shotgun, based here and elsewhere, tour the East Bay or play the parks in good weather. Oakland’s Woman’s Will, the all-female Shakespeare company, plays The Bard in parks around the region, but also does reasonably priced shows, often site-specific, like Happy End in a bar, or The Importance of Being Earnest in a Victorian mansion. San Francisco’s Word For Word, Crowded Fire, Traveling Jewish Theatre and the Mime Troupe (always free, with music, in the parks) have frequent East Bay runs. Innovative physical theatrics bunch, mugwumpin, and Middle Eastern cultural exponents Golden Thread mount their important works often on this side of the Bay Bridge. 

And the local colleges feature drama departments with frequent productions, especially UC Berkeley’s Performing Arts, with particularly interesting programs in recent years. 

Finally, another institution, right this moment in its annual outdoor glory: Woodminster Amphitheater, in Oakland’s Joaquin Miller Park, featuring Broadway musicals high up in the hills, under the open skies by the edge of the forest.

The Bay Area seems to be teeming with singers. That may be a reflection of the presence of the San Francisco Opera, one of the largest houses in North America, and its cultivation of both singers and opera lovers, or it may be just a quirky feature of a population that loves stories, accepts artifice and applauds the wildly dramatic. Whatever the reason, in the Bay Area, Opera Rules. 

Given the number of truly wonderful singers at all levels of talent and expertise, it’s no mystery that there are lots of opera companies—small, medium and large—that provide heart-zapping, eardrum-blistering opera experiences.  

Berkeley Opera 

Founded in 1979 by a singing engineering professor, baritone Richard Goodman, the Berkeley Opera strives to present “opera as lively, compelling musical theater … while remaining accessible, affordable and engaging.” The productions are in English or with English supertitles, and include classics of the opera stage often updated for a contemporary audience. Amusing adaptations by David Scott Marley transformed Rossini’s Italian Girl in Algiers into The Riot Grrrl on Mars and translated Strauss’ Die Fledermaus into Bat Out of Hell. In 2004, Berkeley Opera commissioned an engaging new opera, Chrysalis, from composer Clark Suprynowicz with a libretto by playwright John O’Keefe.  

Artistic/Music Director Jonathan Khuner is a Berkeley boy who graduated from UC and also works on the musical staffs of the San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. A meticulous musician who is willing to take risks in staging and interpretation, he always keeps a firm hand on the musical quality of the company.  

Berkeley Opera performs four operas a year at the Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Avenue. For information and tickets, call (925) 798-1300 or visit www.berkeleyopera.org. Tickets are $40, $16 on the sides, $20/10, seniors, student rush. 

Oakland Opera Theater 

Oakland Opera Theater specializes in 20th- and 21st-century operas performed in its black box space located one block from Jack London Square at 201 Broadway.  

More experimental in outlook and edgier in taste, Director Tom Dean often reconfigures an earlier opera to fit a more contemporary milieu. Frequently he commissions new work. Among the operas produced in the last few years have been Cocteau’s Les Enfants Terribles; Phillip Glass’ Akhnaten; X, the Life and Times of Malcolm X, music by Anthony Davis, libretto by poet/playwright Thulani Davis; and Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s charmingly incomprehensible Four Saints in Three Acts. 

This October Oakland Opera presents Benjamin Britten’s 1954 opera based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, reset on a plantation in the Deep South. The production features aerial performance artists The Starlings Trapeze Duo. 

For information and tickets, go to www.oaklandopera.org or call 763-1146. Tickets are $25 in advance, $32 at the door. 

Trinity Lyric Opera 

A two-year-old company founded by Alan Thayer, Trinity Lyric Opera seeks to present works “neglected in our area by other companies.” Their debut performance of Vaughan Williams’ opera The Pilgrim’s Progress was a West Coast premiere. This summer they presented Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land in an exceptional production at the new Center for the Arts, a 516-seat facility with outstanding sightlines and acoustics on Redwood Drive in Castro Valley. Although performing only once a year, the company is one to watch. www.trinitylyricopera.org. 

Philharmonia Baroque 

At least once a year San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra puts on a concert version of a baroque opera, and Berkeley’s First Congo (more formally known as the First Congregational Church) is among the venues. You have a chance to hear Handel and Mozart, those most formidable opera composers, played on baroque instruments. That alone would be reason enough to attend, but PBO, under the leadership of Nicholas McGegan, is one of the premier early music ensembles playing anywhere in the world today.  

This fall’s fare is Mozart’s Il re pastore (The Shepherd King) with silver-toned sopranos Heidi Grant Murphy and Lisa Saffer, mezzo-soprano Margaret Lattimore, and tenors Iain Paton and Michael Slattery. Performances are slated for the weekend of September 22. For information and tickets, call 415-392-4400 or visit www.philharmonia.org. Tickets are $32-$70. 

Hey! Seven miles is not that far to go to hear good opera, so check out the following: 

San Francisco Opera 

She’s the Great Mother, but she doesn’t come cheap and, except for a brief (and shocking to some) fling under Pamela Rosenberg, she seems to be married for life to opera’s top twenty. But even if you can’t bear to see Madama Butterfly yet again, stay attentive because startling things do happen.  

This year it’s Appomattox, a new opera by Philip Glass, with libretto by Academy Award winner Christopher Hampton. Commissioned by San Francisco Opera, Appomattox is about the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to his Union counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, in the Courthouse of Appomattox, Virginia. Dennis Russell Davies conducts. 

Six performances of this new opera begin Friday, Oct. 5. 

Others productions that look tantalizing are The Magic Flute with designs by Maurice Sendak and the adorable and hunky Christopher Maltman as Papapapageno; plus, a new production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.  

For tickets and information, call 415-864-3330 or visit www.sfopera.com. $45-$175. Rush tickets: Full-time students only, $25; Seniors or military, $30. Standing room, $10. 

San Franciscy Lyric Opera 

San Francisco Lyric Opera’s excellent singers performs out of one of the city’s most appealing and eccentric venues: the Florence Gould Theater at the Legion of Honor. Designed in the style of Louis XVI, the 320 red-velvet seat theater boasts a painted ceiling of cavorting cherubs and is perfect for the company’s “tradition of presenting classical opera in an intimate and comfortable setting.” Lyric Opera presents four operas per year, and begins this season with Tales of Hoffman by Jacques Offenbach (sung in French with English supertitles). Four performances are held on two weekends of Sept. 21 and 29. Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus (sung in German with English supertitles) is scheduled for the weekends of Dec. 7 and 15. For tickets and information, call (415) 392-4400 or visit www.sflyricopera.org. General, $32; students, $18. 

Goat Hall Productions 

Now in its tenth season, this cabaret-theater community of musicians, actors, designers, and technicians is dedicated to the collaborative creative process. They present musical theater and opera in English, and focus on 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. They are always entertaining, lively and provocative. Usually located on San Francisco’s Potrero Hill, this fall they are performing at Oakland Metro while their building is being renovated. For tickets and information, call (415) 289-6877 or visit www.goathall.org. Cabaret table: $25 per seat; single tickets, $20. 

Cal Performances 

Longing for the voice uncluttered by staging and opulent orchestration? Cal Performances presents top-notch recitals that showcase up-and-coming opera stars as well as established greats, especially those whose musical taste matches Berkeley’s lust for the unusual. Among the singers this year are Mariusz Kwiecien, the young Polish baritone who rocked Opera House goers with his unrelentingly dark portrayal of Don Giovanni in SFO’s July production; countertenor David Daniel, whom you must hear if you haven’t; and soprano Dawn Upshaw with eighth blackbird and guitarist Gustavo Santaolalla in Ayre, a song cycle by Osvaldo Golijov. For information and tickets, call 642-9988, or visit www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. Tickets: $38-$68. 

Harvest of Song 

Less expensive and more rad is the Harvest of Song, sponsored by Live Oak Concerts at the Berkeley Art Center. An annual concert of music composed for voice organized by composers Allen Shearer and Peter Josheff, Harvest of Song brings some of the Bay Area’s best chamber instrumentalist in support of new compositions and arrangements written for voice. For information and tickets, call 654-8651. 

Check the Arts Calendar for daily listings. 

Albatross Pub 

1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Anna’s Jazz Island 

2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. 

www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Ashkenaz 

1317 San Pablo Ave. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Beckett’s Irish Pub 

2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. 

www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Blakes on Telegraph 

2367 Telegraph Ave. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Epic Arts 

1923 Ashby Ave. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Freight and Salvage 

1111 Addison St. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jupiter 

2181 Shattuck Ave. 843-8277. www.jupiterbeer.com 

Jazz House 

1510 8th St., Oakland. 415-846-9432. 

Jazzschool 

2087 Addison St. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Nomad Cafe 

6500 Shattuck Ave., Oakland 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

La Peña Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Le Bateau Ivre 

2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Oakland Metro 

201 Broadway, Oakland. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Shattuck Down Low 

2284 Shattuck Ave. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Starry Plough 

3101 Shattuck Ave. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Uptown Nightclub 

1928 Telegraph, Oakland. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Yoshi’s at Jack London Square 

Oakland. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

“Koyaanisqatsi” or “Life out of Balance” a film on the collision of the urban/technology world and the natrual environment at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advanced sign-up is required. 594-5165.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Recording African American Stories Add your voice to the Library of Congress and the National Museum of African American History, Wed. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., by appointment, at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, through Sept. 12. For appointment call 228-3207. 

Green Chamber of Commerce Mixer at 5:30 p.m. at LJ Kruse Company, 920 Pardee St., Cost is $5-$15. RSVP to chivachuca@yahoo.com, www.greenchamberofcommerce.net 

GPS Training for Mapping Creeks with the Contra Costa County Mapping Programs at 7 p.m. at 4191 Appian Way, El Sobrante. To register call 665-3538. www.thewatershedproject.org 

Pax Nomada Bike Ride Meet at 6 p.m. at Nomad Cafe for a 15-25 mile ride up to through the Berkeley hills. All levels of cyclists welcome. 595-5344.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 

“The Energy Revolution is Now” with Prof. Daniel Kammen at the League of Women Voter’s Community Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. at Hs Lordships, Berkeley Marina. Tickets are $75. 843-8828. office@lwvbae.org 

“24 Hours on Craigslist” A documentary by Michael Ferris Gibson at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Donation $5. 843-8724. 

Easy Does It Board of Directors’ Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at 1636 University Ave. 845-5513. 

Art Workshop for ages 5 and up at 3 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Origami at the Library for students in grades 6-12 to learn how to fold a butterfly, heart, wallet, and sailboat, at 6:30 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. RSVP to 526-7512.  

Baby and Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave, Kensington. 524-3043. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at Theta Chi Fraternity, 2499 Piedmont Ave. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com (Code: UCB) 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

“Holy Land: Common Ground” A screening of Ed Gaffney and Alicia Dwyer’s documentary about Palestinian-Israeli cooperation in the midst of conflict at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Suggested donation $10. 524-3359.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 25 

San Pablo Park Centennial Festival with a dedication of a plaque commemorating Frances Albrier and a new mural, live music, crafts and community booths, food and activities for children, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 2800 Park St., bewteen Russell and Ward. 981-6640. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Sheffield Village Meet at 10 a.m. near the traffic island at the southeast corner of Revere Ave and Marlowe Drive to disover this pre-WWII community. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Family to Family Volunteer Day at the Alameda County Community Food Bank Learn about the face of hunger in our community for parents and children ages 5 and up, from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Food Bank, 7900 Edgewater Drive, Oakland. Registration required. 635-3665, ext. 308. 

San Antonio Community Resource Fair, with games, arts and crafts, community information from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at San Antonio Park, 1701 E. 19th St., Oakland. www.sannoakland.org 

Jazzy Tomatoes at the Saturday Berkeley Farmers’ Market with music and tomato dishes from noon to 3 p.m. at Center St. at MLK Jr. Way. 548-3333. 

Nevin Park Groundbreaking Ceremony and 15th Annual Iron Triangle Community Picnic with a New Orleans style procession at 11 a.m. and picnic at noon at Nevin Park, Macdonald Ave. and Sixth St., Richomnd. 307-8150. Jacqueline_vaca@ci.richmond.ca.us 

Solo Sierrans Hike in Huckleberry Botanical and Redwood Regional Parks Meet at 10 a.m. at Huckleberry Staging Area south of Sibley, about 1/2 mile on Skyline Blvd. in Oakland for a leisurely six-hour hike with some steep climbs, views and trees. 925-691-6303. 

Hopalong Animal Rescue Come meet your furry new best friend. Cats and kittens avalable for adoption from noon to 3 p.m. at Your Basic Bird, 2940 College Ave. 267-1915, ext. 500. 

Ear Acupuncture for Stress Relief and Detox from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Pharmaca, 1744 Solano Ave. 

Girls Fast Pitch Softball tryouts for Bears Softball Assoc., on Sat. and Sun. For information call 748-0611. www.bears-softball.com 

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

Hamster Adoption Fair Learn about these little pets and help one find a good home, from 1 to 4 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 26 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Jingletown Meet at 10 a.m. next to Mary Help of Christians Church, east 9th and 26th Ave. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

“Peace with Justice: Prison Reform” with Laura Mangini at 10:30 a.m. at Easter Hill United Methodist Church, 3911 Cutting Blvd. Richmond. 233-0777. 

“Art in the Park” Exhibition hosted by the City of Alameda, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Jackson Park, 2430 Encinal Ave., Alameda. arpd@ci.alameda.ca.us  

Oak Grove Music Festival Celebrating 268 days of tree occupation, from 1 to 7 p.m. at the Memorial Oak Grove, Piedmont at Bancroft. 938-2109. www.SaveOaks.com 

Auditions for “Little Mary Sunshine” at 1 p.m. at Masqueers Playhouse 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Please prepare a 32-bar up-tempo showtune. 415-465-5550. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, Julia Morgan’s “little castle” at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:15 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. Free, donations welcome. 883-9710. 

Sew Your Own Open Studio from 5 to 9 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Drive, Aquatic Park. Our workshop has industrial and domestic machines and tools which you can come learn to use or work on your own projects in a social setting. Cost is $3 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

MONDAY, AUGUST 27 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. 2 to 6 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Drive, Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

Rally for Justice for Woodfin Workers at 6 p.m. outside Emeryville City Hall, then show your support at the 7 p.m. City of Emeryville Appeal Hearing. www.woodfinwatch.org 

Auditions for Contra Costa Chorale at 7:15 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito. 527-2026.