Other than that rain–and that SUNSET!–the big news everyone is talking about, of course, is that ORB has a new website.
But other important things are happening townside, too, I guess: Dawn King's The Trials will be playing all week at Zellerbach, Emeryville is doing some arts tours, the Kathakali Mini Festival will be epic (from the Mahābhārata and Ramayana) over three nights in West Oakland, the Autumn Lights at Lake Merritt are lighting, Rhummanee Hang is being welcomed, Sistah Scifi is fulfilling, and if you like photobooks, head out to the West Bay on Sunday. We’ve heard that readings are turning into America’s new favorite pastime, which seems plausible; OPL book clubs are certainly popping, and all week, Litquake will be knocking over our shelves, scaring the dogs, and breaking our calendrical stamina. Moby Dick, however, has been cancelled, and it's about time (too much sperm). Holler if you remember Eastmont Mall. –MS, AB
Tuesday, October 14
[West Bay Bonus Event] From Draft to Shelf: Tom Comitta in Conversation with Editor Lizzie Davis, 5:00 PM, CCA (Design District).Tom Comitta (The Nature Book, People's Choice Literature) is a writer who collages rather than composes. He talks with our friend Lizzie Davis of Transit Books about the creative, editorial, and collaborative journey behind publishing a book—from early drafts to final publication: editor–author relationship, the mechanics of bringing unconventional books into the world, and how trust and vision shape both artistic experimentation and editorial strategy. [MFA CCA]
~~Litquake~~ [West Bay Bonus Event But It’s An Oakland Movie, So] Blindspotting, 6pm, The Roxie (The Mission). ZYZZYVA Movie Night with Ingrid Rojas Contreras offers a critically acclaimed 2018 film about Oakland, which will be introduced by featured guest Robert Samuels, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning book His Name Is George Floyd. [litquake]
~~Litquake~~ Scribbling Women Strike Back, 7:00pm, Mrs. Dalloway’s (College Ave). A convening of authors, podcasters, and publishers dedicated to recovering the voices of women who have been erased or lost or terrifically misunderstood. “Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air.” A Mimi Pond sighting! [Mrs Dalloway’s]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Michelle Peñaloza with Karen Llagas and Janice Lobo Sapigao, 7pm, Green Apple Books on the Park (Outer Sunset). Peñaloza’s new collection of poetry All The Words I Can Remember Are Poems challenges colonized ideas of history and truth, particularly in relation to Filipinx/a/o history and its colonization by the United States. Poems of intergenerational love result. [GAB on the Park]
Lisa Graves: Without Precedent, 7pm, Clio’s (The Lake). Subtitle says it all: How Chief Justice Roberts and His Accomplices Rewrote the Constitution and Dismantled Our Rights. Provocative discussion of rights, reactionary politics, and current judicial crises. “Brutus is an honorable man.” [eventbrite]
~~Litquake~~ Minor Black Figures, 7:30pm, David Brower Center (Downtown Berkeley). Brandon Taylor is in conversation with Jonathan Escoffery to launch Taylor’s new novel. Fire up the discourse machine, will ya? Somebody report on these vibes, please. [Litquake]
Also: The 51st State? Canadian Resistance to American Annexationism since 1775 with the Canadian Studies Program (who knew that was a thing) at Cal (Berkeley) / Birgitta Trotzig, the People’s Home, and the Politics of Evil with Welfare State Modernism (who knew THAT was a thing) at Cal (Berkeley) / Attacks on the the Rule of Law in the U.S. and Poland (we knew that was a thing) at Local Economy (College Ave) / Augustine the African with Catherine Conybeare at Cal (Berkeley)
Wednesday, October 15
All the things sold out already because Wednesday is the new Thursday: Book Signing Huey P. Newton’s Family: Roots Of A Revolutionary Suicide at Merritt College (Skyline); Cheryl Dunye’s Short Work at BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley); Caregiver Storytime with Elissa Strauss at Local Economy (College Ave); While you were novel-ing, I studied the blade: A Celebration of the Short Story at Clio’s (The Lake); Works-in-Progress with Thao Nguyen at Local Economy (College Ave). Sellouts.
Berkeley Book Chat: Mother Media, 12pm, Stephens Hall (Cal). Parapraxis editor and I guess Cal history prof, or something, Hannah Zeavin tells the complicated story of American techno-parenting, from the Greatest Generation through millennials, on how using technology in our most intimate relationships became a moral flash point. [Townsend Center]
First Annual East Oakland's Vibrant Corridors Movie Night: Ironheart, 5pm, Liberation Park (Deep East). Experience an exclusive screening of the first episode of this highly anticipated Disney+ series with Oakland’s own Chinaka Hodge, Head Writer and Executive Producer of Ironheart (and poet published by City Lights/Sister Spit). [eventbrite]
The Night Trembles: Sicily’s history, magic, and tarots, 5 p.m., Dwinelle Hall (Cal). Sicilian writer Nadia Terranova will present the new American edition of her novel Trema la notte, published by Seven Stories Press and translated into English by Ann Goldstein. Earthquakes, escaping literal and social handcuffs, and melancholy lyricism in a charming accent. [UCB]
A Tribute to Eugene O’Neill, 6pm, The Growler Pub, Danville (Hot Side of the Hills). America’s only Nobel Prize–winning playwright wrote some good drama in the quiet hills of Danville. Celebrate that surprising local legacy with an evening of poetry, prose, and sea shanties (?!) as part of the town’s annual Eugene O'Neill festival. [insta]
Terms of Servitude: An Evening with Author Omar Zahzah, 6pm, Middle East Children's Alliance (Berkeley). Another good explanatory subtitle: “Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler/Colonialism in the Palestine Liberation Struggle.” Big tech is a tool of imperialism, obviously, but here’s the receipts. Zahzah is a writer, poet, organizer of Lebanese Palestinian descent, and SFSU Prof. [humanitix]
Meet the Author, Shoshana Walter. 6:30pm, Rockridge Branch OPL (College Ave). Come meet the Oakland-based Pulitzer finalist who wrote Rehab: An American Scandal. “A horrific indictment of America's profit-driven healthcare system” and “a nuanced and deeply reported exposé of America's $53 billion addiction-treatment industry.” [Oakland Library]
~~Litquake~~ [West Bay Bonus Event] The Approach!, 7 pm, City Lights (North Beach). Our friends, the editors, designers, and some awesome contributors (including Oakland’s Carvell Wallace!) hang out and share their work putting together a print publication on newsprint IN THESE TIMES. [Litquake]
Butterflies of the Bay Area, 7 pm, North Branch BPL (Berkeley). West Bay author, artist, and butterfly fanatic Liam O’Brien shares the all-consuming passion and years of work behind the stories and art in his book about our twirling swirling butterflies. He will enthrall you with stories of tiny, endangered blues and common cabbage whites, lofting, migrating monarchs and bright anise swallowtails. [BPL]
Witches Wednesday: HAUS, 8 pm, Family and Friends (Uptown). I googled and searched in IMDB and cannot even find this movie, so based on the word that means “house” and the theme “witches” I am confidently predicting it’s a Baba Yaga story. If I am wrong (I am definitely wrong) you’ll still be hosted by friendly lesbians, eating Les Eggs that are some of the best food being served in the whole country per Food&Wine, and there will be some kind of witchy thing happening on screen. [insta]
Selector Series featuring Tongo Eisen-Martin, 8 pm, Bar Shiru (Uptown). Poet at the decks, whiskey on the lips. [Bar Shiru]
Also: Rebel Kings of Oakland Celebrate Latine Heritage Month at the White Horse Inn (Telegraph) / Learn to Sew Pants at PLACE (Golden Gate) / Dr. Vanessa Carlisle on Awaken Your Sexuality: A Guide To Connection And Intimacy After Addiction And Trauma at A Great Good Place for Books (The Hills) / The Cure: In Orange with Q&A and Book Signing from Lol Tolhurst at The 4 Star Theater (West Bay) / OMCA curator Makeda Best on Labor’s Picture at The Wattis (West Bay) / The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear: A Lecture by Professor Nan Z. Da at Maude Fife in Wheeler (Cal)
Thursday, October 16
The Great Berkeley ShakeOut, 10:16AM, Dwinelle Plaza (Cal). Shake it out San Andreas style or creep like Hayward, just don’t run for a doorway, that is an earthquake canard. [UCB]
Dear Banned Author Postcards, 3pm, Children’s Room at Oakland Main OPL (Downtown) Kids and families are invited to write postcards to authors of banned or challenged books. Make those authors weep with joy for once, kiddos. [OPL]
Book Signing + Panel Discussion / The New Television: Video After Television, 4 p.m. BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). After Television, a collaboration between Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) and no place press, editors Rebecca Cleman and Rachel Churner, along with contributor Tausif Noor, discuss the book’s origins in the catalytic 1974 conference Open Circuits: An International Conference on the Future of Television. Works from KQED’s National Center for Experiments in Television (NCET), the first public television art project in the United States, will screen (I just saw the Joanne Kyger NCET video at the Bolinas Film Festival and it was a TRIP). [UCB]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Amy Shea, Loren Rhoads, and Beth Winegarner Talk About Graves, 6pm, the San Francisco Columbarium (Inner Richmond). An intimate conversation about boneyards and the stories we tell about death through memorialization. For the goth girls. [Books on the Park]
East Oakland Community Emissions Reduction Workshop, 6pm, Youth UpRising (Deep East). Join CBE for the first part of a 2-part workshop series (in person or online) to review and give input on the Bay Area Air District’s draft Community Emissions Reduction Plan (CERP) for East Oakland. [action network]
Poetry & the Mythic Imagination: Jennifer Reimer and Aimee Suzara Poetry Reading and Conversation, 6 p.m., Arts Research Center (Cal). Suzara offers migrating visions: “We come in boats / Or we come swimming” and “The vision of this bangka on my back. / The promise of a place / To reside in: / Is home like that?” And Madeline Miller is a fan of Reimer, so you’ve got a solid line up on myths and poems here. [UCB]
Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sylvia Plath, 6 pm, Womb House Books (Temescal Alley). Come for a myth-busting Plath party with Loving Sylvia Plath author Emily van Duyne in celebration of the paperback launch of the book and Sylvia Plath's birthday. We’re all still real mad at Ted Hughes, that’s a fact. I bet crows didn’t like him at all in real life. (also pssssst, WHB is starting an imprint!!) [eventbrite]
Love Rebels: How I Learned to Burn It Down Without Burning Out, 7pm, Mrs Dalloway’s (College Ave). Local activist and consent advocate Kitty Stryker will speak with Sezin Devi Koehler about what to do when you’re mad at the world but also want to Netflix and chill. It’s published by Thornapple Press and they have a mission to rewrite relationship rules, so you’ll probably learn how to treat all your paramours, metamours, and comrades better as you defeat patriarchy. [Mrs Dalloway’s]
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, 7pm BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). “For all the despair and horror on display, you walk out of it light and hopeful.” What a promise! Swedish weirdo movie as anti-depressant, and almost as affordable as healthcare would be in Sweden. [BAMPFA]
California Is Fire, 7pm, Clio’s (The Lake). River Selby (Hotshot) and Obi Kaufmann (The State of Fire) talk about fear of fire, fighting wildfire, and the ecological cycles good fire can generate. Also, their plot to take down Smokey the Bear. [eventbrite]
Also: Backroom Deals in Our Backyards with Miranda Spivack at the Graduate School of Journalism (Cal) / Seasons of Greens Book Talk with Greens Exec Chef Katie Reicher at Farming Hope's Refettorio (West Bay) / Uptown Oakland Stroll around Uptown Oakland (Uptown) / Celebrating World Food Day: The Stories of Our Everyday Ingredients with Litquake at Mechanic’s Institute (West Bay) / Poetry Circle: a friendly reading circle at Claremont Branch BPL (Berkeley)
Friday, October 17
STAMPED & APPROVED Opening Reception, 6 pm, Bay Street (Emeryville). An art show about permits! Specifically, a show about the work behind the scenes as Public Artworks are approved, designed, and installed. Part of Emeryville Art and Culture Month. [eventbrite]
Quiet Noisy Night with Mac Barnett, 6pm, Local Economy (College Ave). Mac will read Margaret Wise Brown’s trippy, beautiful children's book, The Quiet Noisy Book, and some special guests will chime in, reflecting on the elements of this strange little book. Vibes: Inventive, fascinating, hilarious. [Luma]
Homies: Black Panther Party Museum Edition, 6pm, Black Panther Party Museum (Downtown). Live music, spoken word, and cultural reflection to raise funds for the Temescal Roots Project, a public monument honoring the Black Panther Party, created by Oakland artist Shomari Smith. Panther-esque attire encouraged, beret-havers.[posh]
[West Bay Bonus Event Número Uno] An Ecosexual Walking Tour In Search of the Elusive Boobie Bird, 6pm, Cushion Works (The Mission). Elizabeth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle take a walk and a jiggle with their longtime collaborator Amanda Starbuck. Boobies are birds. Probably. [dice]
Poetry! 6:30, Tamarack (Downtown). This is what we do on Fridays. Celebration for the release of Lyn Hejinian’s Lola the Interpreter, hosted by Violet Spurlock and Jane Gregory, with further readers unknown at the time of calendar compiling; copies of the book will be available for sale at the event so bring your chosen currency to exchange.
~~Litquake~~ [West Bay Bonus Event Número Dos] Unbound Translations: A Listening Party, 6:30pm, Counterpulse (Get off at Powell). Explore media and languages with Cuentero Productions & Two Lines Press. Noelle de la Paz, Monica Cure, and Amanda Nazareno guide a listening party through three immersive audio adaptations and translations and ultimately, transformations. [Litquake]
~~Litquake~~ [West Bay Bonus Event Número Tres] The Enduring Wild: A Journey into California’s Public Lands, 7pm, Books on the Park (The Sunset). Josh Jackson--writer, photographer, lover and defender of California's public lands--in conversation with KALW’s Marissa Ortega-Welch about wilderness, California’s diversity of landscapes and how to steward these places together in the face of federal failures. [Litquake]
Also: Friday Night at the Museum with Ouida at OMCA (The Lake) / No. 89 Shimen Road at BAMPFA (Berkeley) / Marginalia: an autobiography at Clio’s (The Lake)
Saturday, October 18
No Kings. All day, different places (America). Not a single one. [NoKings]
International Music Day, Film Marathon, 10AM-5PM, AAMLO (downtown). Screening The Language You Cry In, A Night in Havana: Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba and Tupac: Resurrection, drop in, whenever you do. [OPL]
Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, 10AM-5PM, Humanist Hall (Pill Hill). Books to buy, people to meet. Mutual aid, reports back from Palestine, organizing locally to fight back against state violence and oppression. Details mostly on instagram, weirdly (did they skip the Zahzah talk?). It’s actually quite a lot! We dig. [eventbrite]
Chronicles of Ori with Harmonia Rosales, 11 AM, The Sanctuary (Grand Ave). This contemporary retelling of an ancient mythology expands the universe of Yoruba spirituality and reflects humanity’s collective journey and ongoing struggles while revealing profound connections not only to other African folktales, but to religious narratives from far corners of the world. $55, but worth it. [The Sanctuary]
~~Litquake~~ [West Bay Bonus Event] Litquake Secret Garden, 1:15pm, SF Botanical Garden (Golden Gate Park). A series of “back to the land” events on everything from ecology to agriculture to elegiac responses to our natural California landscape. Plus live music! [instagram]
Indigenous Voices, 12pm, New Village Oakland (Ivy Hillish). Deja Gould will share the Chochenyo language in honoring culturally significant plants, and Guillermo Vasquez will share about Indigenous permaculture work in the Bay Area and the power of conscious choices to support Mother Earth. [New Village Oakland]
Farmworker Reality Tour, 3-7pm, Watsonville (No, really Watsonville). The food you eat comes to you, so why not go down to where human beings actually pick it to understand how that works. Drive to Santa Cruz, keep going. [eventbrite]
[West Bay Bonus Event I am Missing And Really Sad About] A Sad Flower in the Sand, 4pm, Slash (Dogpatch). An afternoon of poetry reading and harp music on the occasion of "Like a City," Slash’s fall exhibition curated by Sophie Appel, delicious poet who organizes readings in LA and also curates poems on Lower Grand Radio. AND Bay Area-based poets Sophia Dahlin (fave) and D'mani Thomas (faaaave) AND the LA artist David Horvitz, whose typographic work I have on a t-shirt, in a small book, and in a large book. But I have to play host to out of town guests and have been banned from poems for the day so PLEASE GO and write a vibe report you poetry freaks. [insta]
Wayne Harris’ Drapetomania, 4:30pm, The Marsh (Berkeley). In 2012, Wayne Harris was invited by the U.S. State Department to travel to Palestine to do Storytelling workshops and perform a piece about Martin Luther King. Feeling at times a tool of the Government, spreading a story of peace to oppressed people, he falls into an unexpected journey…and maybe the joke’s on Uncle Sam. [The Marsh]
Traveling Shoes Experience, starts at 7pm but arrive at 6, Tiny Telephone Studios (Santa Fe). A new collaborative project from Damani Rhodes x VADIA and Tongo Eisen-Martin, they’ll recording a live album experience. I don’t know what it is, but I saw the name “Tongo.” [Tickets]
The Spook Who Sat by the Door, 7pm, BAMPFA (Cal). Archival print of this “lost” 1973 guerilla film, with various folks to talk about how that happened. “The CIA’s first Black agent—recruited as part of a Potemkin integration policy—from the halls of power to the streets of Chicago, where he uses the agency’s own training to foment a violent Black revolution.” [BAMPFA]
Also: Princess Nokia:A Benefit for NorCal Resist at UC Theatre Taube Family Music Hall (Berkeley) / Bay Area Tea Friends: outdoors, sheng pu'er at Strawberry Park (Berkeley)/ Peanuts 75th Anniversary listening party with special guests Sean and Jason Mendelson at 1234 Go Records (Mosswood) / Handmaking Books with Arion Press at Fort Mason (West Bay) / Bay Area Then and Now Poetry Series at YBCA (West Bay) / Ex Libris: The New York Public Library at BAMPFA (Berkeley) / The Last Mood, a closing at Your Mood Projects (West Bay) / Fix-it Fest at Willard Middle School (South Berkeley) / Daughters, Fathers, & Queens at KALW (West Bay)
Sunday, October 19
Albany Hill History Walking Tour, 10AM, Albany Hill (Albany Hill). Led by Karen Sorensen, “how the hill withstood dynamite explosions and numerous development schemes and has been a home and playground for numerous generations.” [berkhistory]
Webster Street Commercial Buildings Alameda History Walking Tour, 10 AM, Webster Street & Buena Vista Avenue (Alameda). Learn how the byway—originally called Euclid Street—grew, largely thanks to bathhouses. More here at the Alameda Post. [square]
Read The Room: A Celebration of Books, 12:30pm, Kerouac Alley (North Beach). Story and poetry games, author readings with Happy Endings, crafting with DIY Museum, all hosted by City lIghts, Books not Bans, and SFPL. [eventbrite]
Russell City Remembered—Film Screening & Panel Discussion, 1 pm, OMCA (The Lake). Start with a screening of The Apology, a feature-length documentary that highlights Russell City’s deep history while outlining the 1963 forced relocation of the community’s residents from their community and makes clear the harmful impacts of eminent domain. Following the film, descendants of the families displaced Aisha Knowles, Marian Johnson, and Vena Sword-Ratliff will be joined in conversation by moderator, the busiest man in town: Alexis Madrigal. [OMCA]
Sixteen Rivers Press Fall Fundraiser & Poetry Reading, 02:00 PM, Northbrae Community Church (Berkeley). Featuring modern living LEGENDS of West Bay poetry Kim Addonizio (we sit at her feet at Golden Sardine because we imprinted on her poems at 16) and D.A. Powell (“instead, I put that man, like so many others, on paper— / ... crumpled thoughts, crumpled love”) [events]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Light Jacket #23, 3pm, William McKinley Monument on the Panhandle (Inner Richmond). René Zadoorian, Preeti Vangani, Sarah Matsui, and Rose Linke (WHOA amazing) read poetry and some prose.This is the best outdoor reading series happening in the Bay; Amy is bringing everyone to the Park. [insta]
Heyday Harvest, 6 pm, The Freight (Berkeley). Annual fundraiser for everyone’s favorite nonprofit publisher hyping California’s Indigenous voices, unheralded histories, and more than human world. Meet up with the Bay Area’s creative heart and hear East Bay community builders Alice Waters and Alexis Madrigal (who just ran over from OMCA) in conversation, Los Cenzotles play, and Heyday authors read. [Heyday]
Also: Jumble at Et al (The mission) / Eden Natty Wine Garden at Hella Bees (The Lake) / Free Market Day and Repair Cafe at Nicholl Park (Richmond) / Hana Hou Hō’ike at Mastick Senior Center (Alameda) / Intercambio at The New Parkway (uptown) / Mimi Pond: Do Admit! The Mitford Sisters and Me at Alibi Bookshop (Vallejo) / The Berkeley Bird Festival at the David Brower Center (Downtown Berkeley) / We Used to Dance Here at Telegraph Hill Books (West Bay) / Göran Hugo Olsson presents his Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 at the Roxie (West Bay).
Monday, I guess
Gerald Manley Hopkins at the Berkeley Institute (Berkeley) / FUCK ICE MAKE WHEATPASTE at Rock Paper Scissors Collective (Uptown) / Fargo Tbakhi at Maude Fife Room (Berkeley).
