Arts & Events

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 -more-

Pagliacci, Leoncavallo’s “gritty realism” classic of verismo opera, the tale of the fatal crossover between stage and real life in a troupe of carnival performers, will be performed by Project Opera, founded by musical director-conductor Robert Ashens, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights at the Hillside Club, on Cedar near Spruce, a venue associated with the beginnings and early years of Berkeley Opera—and one which has recently seen a diverse renaissance of concert programming. -more-

Items on Display at Berkeley Main Library -more-

It may be cold outside, but it’s already spring to the Anna’s hummingbird, and courtship and nesting are well under way. -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 12 -more-

Temescal Labs, the innovative Oakland theater company (nee Ten Red Hen) that notably staged both The 99-Cent Miss Saigon and Clown Bible at Willard Metalshop Theater, is performing Clean, a work-in-progress about Silicon Valley and toxicity, which includes the story of Hans Reiser, on a double bill with Brittney Brown Ceres’ Bodily File, 8 p.m. tonight (Friday) and Saturday at CounterPulse, 1310 Mission St. near Ninth Street in San Francisco. -more-

Sometime in the early 1960s, Jan Faulkner, an undergraduate at Lincoln University in Missouri, saw some paper ephemera featuring black stereotypes and began a collection that has since been exhibited in museums, featured in monographs and the subject of a film documentary produced by Marlon Riggs in 1986. -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 8 -more-

For seven decades spanning the period from the 1880s to the 1950s, San Francisco was an important hub in the American knitting industry. It became so thanks to one Swiss immigrant: John Jacob Pfister (1844–1921). -more-

I’m listening to the mow-n-blow couple working their way through the neighborhood. I’m about bored with things that roar and go bang, especially in the garden, especially at midday because, surprise, I work right here at home. To judge by the time they’ve spent on the token lawn in front of the apartment next door, the various gas-powered gadgets don’t save much time and they must make the work as hard with their weight as the average push mower, weed whip/scythe, or rake would with just repetitive motion. Don’t get me started on what errant weedwhackers do to tree trunks; I ranted sufficiently last week to keep my diastole high. -more-

One of the most common features in our early 20th century housing stock is that imperishable ruffian of the heating world, the floor furnace. -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 8 -more-