Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, April 13-April 19

Bather’s Library’s spring reading groups are starting soon! We can all learn together about labor in literature, psychogeography, infatuation (Proustian), and more at Oakland’s community art school. And if you want to make, share, and critique art together, sign up by 4/15 for a cohort at Bather’s too – so many ways to connect and learn. And then, amalee bea’s workshop reading and writing with Black ancestors is back at The Sanctuary! This year, everything begins with Suzanne Césaire the first Saturday in May. Looking right ahead, the beast that is Oakland’s literary scene is too big to be contained in one weekend, so come back out for round two of Beast Crawl – including When the Smoke Comes and Sultry Sessions on Saturday, and a book fair on Sunday. The sky is clear for now, the fuzz and haze washed out of the sky and into the ocean, and the calendar is full of opportunities to leave the house this week and wet the whistle of your mind. You might even be lured to the West Bay this weekend – they’re certainly throwing everything at us on Saturday! It’s Earth Day everywhere and in addition to all the book things, it’s West Bay’s Climate Week, because our bodies are made of the world only a few days of the year and the rest of the time our brains sit in jars. -MS, AB

Tuesday, April 14

Press Conference to Stop OAK Airport Expansion, 9am, Lake Merritt Amphitheater (The Lake). I opened the OAK Environmental Impact Report to try to parse this but it's nearly 600 pages long so just go to the press conference and save yourself days of reading about infrastructure upgrades, development of empty land (so-called), noise and air pollution, and ignoring community feedback unless that's your particular kink. [insta]

Storytime for Caregivers with Rachel Richardson, 10 Am, Local Economy (Rockrich). Patricia Zaballos organizes these gatherings where you can bring babies or other human burdens, and not talk about the annoying work of keeping them alive; instead use your brain for what really matters: poetry. Richardson’s fantastic collection Smother is full of fire, friends, and other people's words -- so much to talk about. [luma]

The California Camera Club: Collective Visions in the Making of the American West, 3:30pm, Bancroft then Doe Library (Cal). Start over in the Bancroft for a pop-up exhibit at 3:30 on turn-of-the-century photographers in California. Carolin Görgen will then lecture about the West Bay based California the largest photographic club in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century” and how its members shaped representations of the American West [UCB]

Neighborhood Potluck, 6pm, Freedom & Movement Center (Longfellow). A potluck for neighbors in Longfellow: I saw this on a pole outside Joodooboo, and the Freedom and Movement Center was founded by Heyday author Dorsey Nunn, two extra reasons it gets on the calendar. Get to know your local people over a casserole or a salad. [Longfellow Community Care]

Black Out Poetry Workshop, 6:30pm, Rockridge Branch OPL (Used to Be Shafter). Jeni of @lellobird guides a black out poetry workshop using found text in old books, magazines, advertisements etc. Reveal patterns in language, and find the poetry in the ordinary. [insta]

I-580 Truck Access Study Community Listening Session, 6:30pm, Zoom (The Internet). Which freeways you live between defines your Oakland hood (and if you aren't pinned by two like chopsticks then sorry, you live in a Berkeley of the soul), and we all know the hell that is 880 only happened because white folks in the hills wanted to keep trucks out of their neighborhoods. Cal Trans and Communities for a Better Environment are hosting a listening session about changing the seven decade ban on trucks on 580, and so far, nobody is in favor of spreading the smog around. Have a comment? Show up on the internet tonight. [insta]

[West Bay Bonus Event] SOLD OUT Patrick Radden Keefe with Isaac Chotiner, 7pm, United Irish Cultural Center (Outer Avenues). Patrick Radden Keefe has a book out based on his New Yorker piece which starts with a murder, but you're really going for his interlocutor, Oakland's own Isaac Chotiner, to see if he can conduct an interview that doesn't end in a murder. SOLD OUT but we believe in you and your ability to talk yourself into a tight corner. [eventbrite]

Eli Erlick: Before Gender, with Soleil Ho, 7pm, Pegasus Books Downtown (Berkeley). Rural Californian and UCSC grad student temporarily misplaced in NYC, trans author Eli Erlick will talk with Coyote Media's Soleil Ho about Erlick's book Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950. Always historicize, and claim trans ancestors. [Pegasus Books]

[West Bay Bonus Event the Green] Robert Moor and Marissa Ortega-Welch in Conversation about Trees, 7pm, SF County Fair Building (Golden Gate Park). Publishing is having a very arboreal spring, and Moor's book is perhaps the rangiest of them, going up, down, and all around. In conversation with KALW reporter and How Wild podcaster, Marissa Ortega-Welch, devoted ORB subscriber and keystone of the Pondering Your ORB silver medalist literary trivia team. [Green Apple Books]

[West Bay Bonus Event el Mexicali] Ada Limón in conversation with Alexis Madrigal, 7:30pm, Sydney Goldstein Theater (Hayes Valley). The North Bay poet and recent national poet laureate has returned to her childhood home in Glen Ellen – can't wait for the next book of poems, with less NYC and Kentucky, and more oaks, rivers, and solastalgia. In the meantime, hear Limón on the work behind the art – the song, the swerve, and the spellcasting that makes poetry more open than story, more powerful than argument. [City Arts & Lectures]

Also: Mayan Stories + Art with MOCHA at 81st Avenue Branch (Deep East) / Let Us Start With From Without at Clio’s Books (The Lake) / Past and future of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance: A Historical Perspective at Philosophy Hall (Cal)

Wednesday, April 15

Wednesday Walk: Redwood South Side Scramble, 9:30am, Reinhardt Redwood: Wayside Staging Area (The Hills). Take a hike, this time with flowers. Water and snacks are advised, as always in life. [East Bay Regional Park District]

Maps & More : The State of Jefferson, 11am, Earth Sciences & Map Library (Cal). Probably the event I am most excited about all week: The State of Jefferson is not just weirdo billboards and lawn signs; it's an expression of the pendulum swing of the rural Western economy from extractive primary indust ries to concentration of power and influence in urban areas, and subsequent rural railing against the state. Learn about way way way Nor Cal in this conversation about maps curated by a Cal geographer, Alexis E Woods. [UCB]

Teen Zine Club: Guilty Pleasures, 3pm, Main Library (The Lake-ish). Teens get handsy .... with scissors, and make a tiny pamphlet about their youthful guilty pleasures. Read the finished ones in the library's zine zone later. [Oakland Public Library]

Teen Double Dutch Extravaganza!, 3pm, Piedmont Avenue Branch (Not the Bankers' Enclave). This is also for teens, it says, but we're all little Dutch girls dressed in blue, and here are the things we like to do: salute to the ORB, bow to the ORB, turn our backs on Flock and NextDoor; we can spin a sideshow, we can turn a trick [forthcoming in Touch Week], we can subscribe to ORB, just like this. [OPL]

Cultivating Sustainable Sovereignty: Palestinian Agrarian Lives in Transnational Focus, 3:30pm, McCone Hall (Cal). Geography/farmer/Gaza solidarity party disguised as a lecture by Dr Gabi Kirk about the ideologies behind fair trade Palestinian olive oil. Always go to the geographers' parties, they have the good hummus. [UCB]

Amon & Jenna Muller FULL BELLY Book Signing and Meet & Greet, 3:30pm, Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore (Elmwood). This mid-afternoon book signing with the folks you know from the farmer's market is them staying up til the equivalent of farmers' midnight. Get your farm to table groove on very, very Berkeley style, with Full Belly Farm's new cookbook full of things to do with too many peaches and essays about the work and life of organic farmers. [Mrs. Dalloway's ]

Michelle Smith: LIFE'S WORK, 5:30pm, Books Inc. (Alameda). Look, I am not going to pretend to care about basketball, especially at Stanford, which is what this book is about. Basketball is a sport for tall people who like to run and have good spatial awareness, which makes me unqualified cubed, and I am generationally pro-Bears and anti-Farm. But women's basketball is having a cool moment what with the new bargaining agreement and all, and Michelle Smith has been covering the sport for three decades, so she knows stuff about ladies who can palm balls. And maybe you want to know that stuff too. [eventbrite]

Dusting Settlements led by Jasper Qiyun Wang, 5:30pm, BAMPFA (That's What the B is For). Artist Jasper Qiyun Wang leads a tour through the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha exhibit that's also an act of ancestor worship, with collective gestures of prayer and gratitude to honor her influence. The pieces of work we leave behind us are traces of our lives that continue to shape the world and the people in it. Whose hands are still on you, pulling your lips into their own shapes, breathing words into your ear for your tongue to try. [BAMPFA]

Nancy Kurshan on Levitating the Pentagon, 7pm, Mrs. Dalloway's (Elmwood). There's a paperback edition of Kurshan's memoir of a life of activism, from red-diaper childhood in Oakland to the seven decades of radical social action that followed, including founding the Yippies and the theatrical feminist resistance of W.I.T.C.H., to a variety of solidarity works with political prisoners and indigenous liberation movements. Steal this book, etc, or just come hear how the Pentagon might yet be levitated (or hear her on KPFA) [Mrs. Dalloway's ]

Berkeley Poetry Slam Semi Finals Night #1 ft. Sarah O'Neal, 7pm, The Starry Plough Pub (Berkeley). Poetry is a competition and only the strong survive. Local poet Sarah O'Neal is featured and the rest of the line up is the East Bay's best 3 minutes of poetry outloud. [eventbrite]

Rebel Kings of Oakland: Guillermo Del Toro Night, 9:30pm, White Horse Bar (Bushrod-ish). The drag kings take on the oeuvre of Mexican director del Toro, interpreting movies with their bodies, hearts, and elaborate, strippable costumes: expect lots of horns and some mermen. A good time for all – bring singles (friends and dollar bills). [insta]

Also: Yarimar Bonilla | Puerto Rico and the Aporias of American Empire at McCone Hall (Cal) / Palestinian Tatreez Embroidery with Amanne Sharif at Main Oakland Library (Lake-ish) / Tribal Ecological Perspectives on Rematriation at SFPL Main Library (West Bay) / Golden Teachers in the Hood by Taru Marcellus Book Launch at Nomadic Bookshop (Uptown) / Dimond Book Club at Dimond Branch OPL (Dimond District) / Meet the Author: Matt Fogelson - Restrung: Fatherhood in a Different Key at Rockridge OPL (Shafter Social Climbing into Rockridge) / Guardians, Tricksters, Terrors: Demons of Ancient Egypt at Clio’s Books (The Lake) / Our Land/Nuestra Tierra at BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley)

Thursday, April 16

mak-'amham/Cafe Ohlone, 3:30pm, Lawrence Hall of Science (Berkeley Hills). Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino share their traditions as Ohlone people still living in their homelands here in the East Bay. At the Lawrence Hall of Science ‘ammatka Cafe, which features Ohlone inspired foods. [BPL]

Jesmyn Ward, 5pm, Maude Fife (UC Berkeley). Jesmyn Ward will be at Cal to lecture and read. That's all you really need to know, although I bet you didn't know that Ward was born in Berkeley (before her family took her back to Mississippi when she was three, but even so). She has won all the awards and honors and deserves them. It'll be livestreamed, but if you go in person, you won't regret it. [UC Berkeley English Dept]

Call Me By Your Name, 6:30pm, The New Parkway (Uptown). Womb House Books is launching a film series at the New Parkway whose theme is YEARNERS and they're starting it off with Aciman, Ivory, Guadagnino, and baby Chalamet. [wombhousebooks]

Faye Snowden: A Killing Breath, 6:30pm, Books Inc. (Alameda). Bay Area mystery writer Faye Snowden is in conversation about her new book, which has a Southern Gothic vibe, a Black female detective making up for her father's sins, and axe murderers. [Books Inc.]

Black Film: Unscreened & Unstreamed, Lake Merritt Monster & NOSEEUMS, 6:30pm, Oakstop (Uptown). The Lake Merritt Monster, a local short film about what if there was actually megafauna in the lake is followed by the NOSEEUMS feature film. The description says there will be a talkback so do your Merritt Monster homework before class. [eventbrite]

[West Bay Bonus Event] Soulmate As a Verb, 7pm, Fabulosa Books (The Castro). Celebrating Soulmate as a Verb, from Dopamine, the imprint devoted to queer voices led by Michelle Tea. This new book of poems by Kelsey L Smoot is divided into four sections: chest, ribs, lungs, heart – all the layers of armor and tenderness within Black Southern trans masculinity. He will be in conversation with fellow poet edwin bodney. [insta]

Floating Weeds, 7pm, BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). If you know, you know. Seeing Ozu’s 1959 color remake of his own 1934 film in a good print on a big screen is a real don't-miss-this-event. My man loves to build boxes out of houses and put people in them, and also longing. [BAMPFA]

Unsung Heroines: East Bay Book Launch with Rae Alexandra, 7 pm, Local Economy (Rockridge). Go hella local with Rae Alexandra, KQED Arts reporter and longtime appreciator of East Bay punk, whose new book from City Lights tells the true stories of Bay Area women who shaped this place and aren’t Phoebe Hearst. See you there! [luma]

Ask a North Korean with Defector Charles Ryu, 7:30pm, Philosophy Hall (Cal). Escaping from a fascist dictator: a how to, just, you know, in case. [UCB]

Also: Aurora’s Sunrise at BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley) / When Home is a Photograph: Blackness and Belonging in the World at BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley) / Leamos autoras: club de lectura en español at Central Library (Downtown Berkeley) / Paths to Deliciousness: Potluck & Closing Celebration for the Path to Belonging Project at Edith Stone Room (Albany) / Night Mic at Nomadic Bookshop (Uptown) / Speaking Axolotl presents Grace Olguin and Nikolai Garcia at Medicine For Nightmares (The Mission)

Friday, April 17

Surviving Rupture: California’s Subnational Diplomacy in Today’s World, 12:30pm, Philosophy Hall (Cal). Evan Reade, International Affairs Advisor, Office of California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, talks about how California might need to just go do diplomacy on our own since since no-one at the fed level seems to know how to even pronounce negotiation. With pizza! [UCB]

Germany in Autumn, 3:30pm, BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). Fassbinder is not the only German moviemaker involved here – there are 10 more who all contributed bits. But in case you're going for Fassbinder completism, and why not, make sure to stick your head in for at least the first half hour. [BAMPFA]

****ORB Happy Hour, 4pm, Nido's Backyard (Jack London Square-ish). Find out what we are doing next, what the sixth sense of Oakland will be, and hear the train go rattling past. Look for the \O/****

Visiting Artist Lecture Series: bryant terry, 5pm, Anthropology and Art Practice (Cal). bryant terry comes to talk food, art, and more. terry is a cookbook author, the guest editor of The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2025, founder and editor-in-chief of 4 Color Books, an imprint of East Bay-based Ten Speed Press (nested inside Penguin Random House), and got his MFA from Cal last year. Hella local, very vegan. [UCB]

[West Bay Bonus Event] Artists Live Here: Community Convening, Session 2, 5pm, SOMArts (SoMa). Artists are citizens and also make the best signs for protests. Come gather with fellow Bay Area artists and organize to bring attention to the role of the arts in making this place what it is. Prep for a West Bay rally on Tuesday, April 21 to make some (artistic!) noise. [insta]

Poetry!, 6:30pm, Tamarack (Downtown). Tam tam eats all the ham -- readings by an all Oakland line up of heavy hitters: Christine Imperial (Mistaken for an Empire: A Memoir in Tongues, Ohio State UP), Eric Sneathen (Don't Leave Me This Way, Nightboat), and Samantha Giles (Total Recall, Krupaskaya). [insta]

Also: Arnoud Arps | Who owns Intangible Cultural Heritage from a Shared Colonial Past? The Rijsttafel, Food Media, and the Dutch East Indies at Philosophy Hall (Cal) / TERRY WINCKLER AUTHOR EVENT at Books Inc. (Alameda) / Poetry Lounge Happy Hour & Open Mic at Passport (Downtown) / SToRYTeLLeR/TLaQueTZQui with ire’ne lara silva and Maribel Martínez at Medicine for Nightmares (The Mission) / Canuto’s Transformation at BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley)

Saturday, April 18

Birding at Lake Merritt Workshop, 8:30am, Bather's Library (Down Grand to the Lake). First, look at birds; then talk about birds (who did you see? who did you hear? where did they come from? how the hell do binoculars work?) with members of QTPOC Birders. THEN Oliver Fucking James is back in town and will show you how to draw them. This costs some money, but it goes to support Birding for Everyone, which is how it should be. [Bather's Library]

[West Bay Bonus Event Primus] Somatic + Scent Foraging Walk, 9am, The Last Straw (Outer Sunset). Arianna Khmelniuk (Oakland-based artist) takes you around the Coastal West Bay to feel the place we live on your skin and in your nose. There will be tea, incense, and body-tapping because we're Californians. [USAL]

Alameda Post History Walking Tour: Bay Farm Island, 10am, The 1880 well at today’s Holly Street and Redhook Lane (The Island that Used to be a Peninsula). During this tour, find out there were farms on Alameda, and an airport, and walk for a mile or two with Dennis, who will tell you about his favorite dead farmers. [Alameda Post]

Black Earth Day, 10am, Esther's Orbit Room (West Oakland). Join the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative to clean up and honor the legacy of 7th Street in West Oakland. Comes with coffee, snacks, neighbors, and a party! [insta]

Cafe Santana Empowered Women Poetry, 11am, Cafe Santana (The Laurel). Three hours (?!!) of performance and readings from a whole line up of local women poets: Kristin Tessa D'Souza, Amalia Castanon Hill, Atosha Zerbine, Vida Manzo, Angelita Topete, Stephanie Tauregui, Yenia Jimenez, and Deyci Carrillo Lopez. With coffee, to keep you going. [insta]

Honoring Yemeni Roots, 11am, Zoom (The Library’s Internet). Consider this background research you will do from home before going to sip coffee with Yasir in person. Hang out in a grid of boxes with Yemeni American writers, community leaders, and social activists in the Bay Area and beyond who will maybe talk about what else is important in Yemeni culture before and after coffee. [OPL]

90-Second Newbery Film Festival, 12:30pm, Rockridge Branch OPL (College Ave). 90-second films of Newbery-award winning books made by youth filmmakers -- what a fucking trip! I hope some of the cineastes plunge back into the 80s and 90s to recreate my childhood faves The Giver and The Hero and the Crown, for starters. If they haven't, I know what my kids will be doing over summer vacation.... [OPL]

[West Bay Bonus Event Secundus] John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office, 12:30pm, 4 Star (Central Richmond). How do brains and language work and what kinds of drugs can you take to find out seem to be the motivating questions behind Dr. John C. Lilly's life in science exploring our sensorial systems, the language of dolphins and whales, and his own body. Now in a movie with Chloë Sevigny narrating. [4 Star Movies]

Search for Treasure in Old Newspapers, 2pm, Oakland History Center (The Lake-ish). OPL has history! Mostly on microfiche, but also in print and digitized too. Check out the old newspaper archives, especially if you are going to compete in the diorama-off this summer! Last year's was awesome, so start digging in the archives for stories weirder than 10-Foot Python Found During Bay Area Sideshow Bust and Grit, Hobo Kitten, Rides Brake Rods on Crack Train. [OPL]

Eritrean Coffee Ceremony with Cafe Anbesa, 2pm, Montclair Branch OPL (Montclair). A traditional Eritrean coffee ceremony with Chef Senait from Cafe Anbesa, presented in Tigrinya, with live English translations. OPL is doing a lot of Red Sea coffee programs. [Oakland Bloom]

Berkeley Adult & Youth Poet Laureates 2026, 2pm, Central Library (Berkeley). Berkeley has so many poet laureates there's a line at the mic. Hanan Masri (long time school teacher and Berkeley resident), and youth laureates Nolawit Ketema and Rachel Dunn all take turns today. [BPL]

The Librarians Documentary Screening, 2pm, Fremont Library (Deep South Oakland). Librarians are the bulwark protecting our freedom to read; this free screening of the award-winning documentary features the collective fight against book banning by stubborn librarians across the US. And you get a free book if you stay to the end: Amanda Jones's That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America. [Alameda County Library]

Mohka House guy explains why there are so many Yemeni cafes now, 3pm, Rockridge Branch OPL (Rockridge). Conversation with the owner of the Dimond's new Mohka House, who will talk about the history of coffee and tea in Yemen and how it inspired the creation of Mohka House, and maybe explain what's up with that. [OPL]

[West Bay Bonus Event Tertius] Exhibition on Screen: Turner & Constable, 3pm, 4 Star (Central Richmond, but not the East Bay Richmond). Pastoral realism versus the birth of Romanticism: a big screen battle for the ages [4 star movies]

Echoes of Eureka: A Youth Opera Bridging History and Hope, 4pm, Oakland Asian Cultural Center (Chinatown). A chorus of children will be singing, and there won't be divas and dramatic stagecraft, but on the other hand, $10 gets you opera in Oakland! And it's about 19th century anti-Chinese racism in Humboldt, and comes with a movie (Chisato Hughes’ film Many Moons), about the same. [OACC]

[West Bay Bonus Event Quartus] Eileen Myles Reading, 5pm, Et al. (The Mission). We're going back to the beginning. That manuscript that sat unpublished in a drawer in 1978 now is in print, along with Myles's first 3 books of poetry. Myles feels very Bay Area even though they live in Marfa and NYC, writing about queerness and the world in the blunt vernacular that makes them iconic (I’m in love with / about 3 people / right now / all women / and I’m unlucky in that / sort of thing) and that is what readers love about Myles (I write about myself / all the time / which makes me / sort of / a narcissistic asshole). Swag (a t-shirt) and books for sale! [insta]

[West Bay Bonus Event Quintus] Bob Kaufman Birthdia Reading y (non)Lecture, 7pm, Medicine for Nightmares (The Mission). SoCal poets Mimi Tempestt and soledad con carne (i found god— / on the 405; / at food4less; / in a burger and fries; / during a laugh / late at night / while wiping cum / off my thighs) join Mission poet Josiah Luis Alderete to read and discuss West Bay essential beatnik Bob Kaufman's work in honor of what would have been Kaufman's 101st bday. Believe in the swinging sounds of jazz, / Tearing the night into intricate shreds, / Putting it back together again, and learn about how writers of color today connect to his improvisatory legacy. [Medicine for Nightmares ]

[West Bay Bonus Event Sextus] Samar Series, 7pm, Arc Gallery (SoMa). This series dedicated to SWANA and allied voices started in the East Bay but has wandered west. Tonight, featuring Tala Khanmalek aka mecca monarch, Dāshaun Washington (When I was 21, my father kissed my forehead and this was the first time he ever kissed me.), and David Gorin (host of WAVEMACHINE). [insta]

ANNUAL EARTHQUAKE ANNIVERSARY SHOW!, 7:30pm, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum (Fremont). All West Bay silent weirdness, just a decade or two after the whole city burned down. An opium smuggler is marked for murder in this story of the Chinese Mafia, and two shorts about hanging out in the West Bay. [Niles Film Museum]

Sultry Sessions X Beast Crawl Edition, 8pm, Sessions on 15th (Downtown). This special Beast Crawl session of Sultriness marks one year of erotic storytelling and dancing and poetry and whatever form of expression you can bring to the sensual BIPOC-centering open mic run by Melanie and Ada for everyone's delight. Come share your story of sexual discovery, your thirsty rap, and your naughty chair dances. Can you finish in less than 7 minutes? [eventbrite]

Also: Another Quilt is Possible with Scrap and Wyatt at Tamarack (Downtown) / Performance: Julius Caesar at SFPL Main Library (West Bay) / Gritos; On Finding the Source of Our Voices Writing Workshop led by ire'ne lara silva at Medicine for Nightmares (The Mission) / Cowboy Sanctuary: Pryce Jones Solo Exhibition at Alta Vina Wines (Jack London District) / Earth Day Habitat Restoration at King Estate Open Space (Deep East) / Selected Short Films of Lucrecia Martel at BAMPFA (Berkeley) / The Anatomy of a Song at Central Library (Berkeley)

Sunday, April 19

Walnuts into Dice, 10am, Coyote Hills Visitors Center (Fremont). Create and play with dice made from locally foraged walnuts, learn how the Ohlone people play games and gamble even without federal recognition or a land base for a casino [EBRPD]

Oakland Arms Embargo Campaign Meeting, 11am, Islamic Cultural Center of Northern CA (Downtown and Lake-ish). The stupidly renamed Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport also stupidly ships arms out of its cargo area. Join forces with other locals who want to see an arms embargo now. Blocking ports is fun; we should all do it again sometime soon. [insta]

Bon Marché 2nd Hand Market, 11am, Abrams Claghorn Gallery Lot (Albany). Bring your garb from all your shitty gigs at tech companies, and Logo Removal Service will cut out the brand names and sew new shapes and colors in. Kind of Adbusters for your clothes. [insta]

Spotlight Sundays: Cultural Burn Practices and the Future of Fire, 1pm, OMCA (The Lake). Corrina Gould of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust will speak with Jordan Reyes and Patty Franklin of Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance about cultural fire, and how it differs from controlled burns. In the traditional fire regime, for one thing, California would have a pall of smoke over it from late summer through fall, but now burns have to happen in the winter/spring, which is not ideal for tradition or for the plants. [OMCA]

Albany Reads: Poetry and Resilience with Satsuki Ina, 2pm, Albany Library (Greater North Oakland). In Satsuki Ina's family memoir of the before, during, and generational trauma after of internment, The Poet and the Silk Girl, a key motif is the haiku her father wrote to her mother. Poetry and stories hold the past, imagine the future. Comes with drums and the Youth Poet Laureate of Alameda County. [Albany Library]

Distant Relative: News from Home and Measures of Distance, 4pm, BAMPFA (You know where to find it). What I really loved about the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha exhibit was how pervasive printed and spoken language was across all media, all her forms of artistic expression. Words sprawl and get caught, and a typewriter is very important. These two films about epistolary relationships between mothers and daughters are shown in chiming conversation with the exhibit because they also visualize, literalize, and prioritize words. Which makes these movies I might go to, since I can read them. [BAMPFA]

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, 6:30pm, The New Parkway Theater (Uptown). Special screening of the documentary/concert film Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, followed by a live performance by Conspiracy of Beards, a cappella male choir performing exclusively the songs of Leonard Cohen. [SF Leonard Cohen Festival]

Zama, 7pm, BAMPFA (Downtown). This was Lucrecia Martel's first movie in a decade and a real return to form, if in the form of an 18th century fuckboi-in-the-Americas period drama adaptation of the Antonio di Benedetto novel by the same name. Guilt, sex, shame... it's all here, but not in Salta, Argentina, where all her movies had, until this one, been set. [BAMPFA]

The Joffrey Ballet: Midsummer Night’s Dream, 8pm, Zellerbach Hall (Cal). The Joffrey Ballet does Alexander Ekman’s celebration of the Scandinavian summer solstice festival, score by composer Mikael Karlsson and Swedish indie rock singer Anna von Hausswolff. [Cal Performances]

Also: Bioblitzing at Tilden Nature Area (Berkeley Hills) / African American Traditional Quilting Workshop at Main Library (Lake-ish)