Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday December 21, 2007

FRIDAY, DEC. 21 -more-


A Guide to Bay Area Holiday Events

By Ken Bullock
Friday December 21, 2007

As Advent draws to a close, the holiday events in the Bay Area roll on, unabated, with something nearly every day for the believer, the enthusiast, the festive, the funseeker—as well as the Grinch and the Scrooge. -more-


Holiday Gift Ideas: A Few of the Best DVD Releases of the Year

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday December 21, 2007

There must be a gazillion DVDs released every month, and most of it is just filler, nothing worthy of adding to a serious or even semi-serious film collection. But 2007 saw a number of significant releases as well, though they may not get much display space at your local big box retailer. Below are just a handful of the best DVD releases of the year. -more-


About the House: While My Bathroom Floor Gently Rots

By Matt Cantor
Friday December 21, 2007

I look at my bath, see the fungus that’s growing -more-


Garden Variety: Happy Holidays, Everyone, And Remember to Keep The Sol in Solstice

By Ron Sullivan
Friday December 21, 2007

One of the more common plants to be handed about as décor and, say, hostess gifts is the poinsettia. It’s a Christmas cliché, and it’s been around long enough that some people have found it necessary to call it names and dismiss it. Others have bred it into some fairly weird forms: dappled, ruffled, wrinkled, ivory, pink. I myself like all but the pink, because who needs more pink? But de gustibus non est disputandum. -more-


Berkeley This Week

Friday December 21, 2007

FRIDAY, DEC. 21 -more-


Arts Calendar

Tuesday December 18, 2007

TUESDAY, DEC. 18 -more-


The Theater: ‘The Shaker Chair’ at Ashby Stage

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 18, 2007

Obie winner Adam Bock’s new play, The Shaker Chair, at Ashby Stage in a joint production of the Shotgun Players with Encore Theatre Co., opens with one woman sitting on the title piece, expostulating with another woman, who’s curled up in another kind of chair crying over a book. -more-


Akademie Ensemble Presents Bach, Beethoven, Strauss

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 18, 2007

Berkeley Akademie Ensemble, Berkeley Symphony’s new program jointly directed by conductor Kent Nagano and violinist Stuart Canin to present music in “a multifaceted structure,” a tradition of Akademies which “trace their origin all the way back to what one might call the democratization of music,” will perform their debut concert 8 p.m. Wednesday at the First Congregational Church with renditions of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 2 and 3, Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue and Richard Strauss’ “Metamorphosen.” -more-


Sidney Howard: From Berkeley to Broadway and Hollywood

By Phil McArdle, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 18, 2007

Everyone who knew Sidney Howard (1891-1939) testified to his exuberant vitality. Barrett Clark said he had an “irrepressible youthfulness, a tremendous enthusiasm for life.” He was admired for his generosity to other writers, and his own plays were described as “among the best ever written in America.” He was one of the first important Broadway playwrights to go to Hollywood. -more-


Wild Neighbors: December: Time to Count the Kinglets

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday December 18, 2007

This weekend, against my better judgment, I will be doing a couple of Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts, one in Marin County, the other in Solano. (The Christmas Bird Count arose as a humane alternative to the traditional Christmas Side Hunt, whose object was to shoot every bird you saw. The data compiled by this annual exercise in citizen science has become a mother lode for ornithologists studying trends in North American bird populations.) -more-


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday December 18, 2007

TUESDAY, DEC. 18 -more-


Correction

Tuesday December 18, 2007

The Shoe Pavilion in downtown Berkeley “isn’t going anywhere,” said Jill Seiler, operations manager for the Shoe Pavilion. The Daily Planet incorrectly reported that the store is closing in a story on Tuesday. -more-