Arts & Events

TUESDAY, NOV. 13 -more-

“What do I know about a heart? To me, a man’s an asset!” Mae West’s very intonation is proverbial—though just after the start of Sex, her 1926 Broadway blockbuster now revived at the Aurora, she intones, not too piously: “Don’t give me that church business again; you’ll get me goin’ back to the old homestead.” -more-

Bamboo is a plant with many faces and many reputations. It’s invasive, except when it’s not; it’s edible, tough, fast-growing. It’s good for scaffolding, houses, roofs, containers (in sizes from spice-bottle to bazooka), musical instruments (the Malagasy valiha tubular harp and sodinha flute, just for example), bows and arrows and the bowstrings too, fishing rods, curtain rods, flooring, paneling, dishes, kitchen and table utensils as well as the table and most of the kitchen itself, including water pipes. -more-

TUESDAY, NOV. 13 -more-

FRIDAY, NOV. 9 -more-

Tenor Kalil Wilson, 26, who grew up in Berkeley and Oakland, won the annual New York Metropolitan Opera National Council competition regional finals in Los Angeles on Oct. 30 and will sing on-stage at the Met in February in the semifinals. -more-

Once in a great while, everything goes right. It’s not very often, mind you, but it does happen. This time it’s the play that’s ending its two-week run this weekend at the East Bay Jewish Community Center in Berkeley. -more-

We tend to think that once something is committed to film we have it forever. The act of recording seems by its very nature permanent, and often we forget that the very materials used to record are nearly as transient as the images they capture. For the reality is that film is a tenuous medium at best, given to disintegration and, in the case of nitrate films, spontaneous combustion. And this is compounded by the fact that cinema itself was for decades considered merely a novelty, an ephemeral entertainment of virtually no great cultural or historical value. -more-

Poets and world travelers from the international scene of the 1960s and ’70s, Ira Cohen and Louise Landes Levi will read with poet and editor Michael Rothenberg 7:30 p.m. Monday at Moe’s Books on Telegraph Avenue. Admission is free. -more-

Days of Heaven -more-

Water is the primary problem to solve if we’re to raise plants. I suspect this has always been the case almost everywhere (and offhand I can’t think of what the theoretical exception would be) and likely will be, at least until some theoretical descendants are working hydroponic plantations outside the orbit of, say, Mars, where the problem will be sunlight. Probably there’s some smiling herb grower now who’s working on an electricity-sparing solution to that. -more-

I tend to stare at the ceiling a lot. I think it’s only to be expected. If you sleep on your back or lie on the couch reading Jane Austin (as we all must), you’re bound to spend a certain amount of time staring off into space and guess what’s there … between you and space but your ceiling. There it hangs (Yes, that’s what it’s doing, hanging.) between the walls, with all those cracks and stains and Grateful Dead posters and you think, “Maybe I should do something about this mess but what can I do? It’s a ceiling, not a casserole. I don’t know where to begin!” -more-

FRIDAY, NOV. 9 -more-

FRIDAY, NOV. 9 -more-