Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, August 5 – August 11
Back to school haircuts are buzzing and so are last hurrah vacations, but don’t leave just yet: The Bay has decided to put on shows of all kinds this week. Freaky Tales shows at Grand Lake for one more week ($6 Tuesdays!). Woodminster Summer Musicals is putting on In the Heights at Joaquin Miller, and in the West Bay the festival of bite-sized plays “Queer as F*** VII: Resistance and Rebellion” is starting up Thursday. There is a bunch of baseball thanks to the Ballers home games in West Oakland, plus: did you ever wonder what is in that big Scottish Rite Center? Opera, that’s what. Drop off clothing for repair at Two Two before August 17 if you want some hand-stitched art to show off later. Since you like to know what’s happening, stop by Bather’s Library to get their August arts event calendar (print only), and on the internet make sure you’re keeping an eye on Azucena Rasilla’s weekly cultural highlights at Oaklandside, Christina’s bookish West Bay events in Same Page SF (congrats on your new baby!), SF Art Guide for all the arts, Devon Youngblood at SF Has (no) Culture for a wide Bay Area net of artsy goodness, and Screen Slate because some people like their books to be acted out. City Lights is doing some cool stuff on the internet, so zoom in from Oakland. We included next Monday in this week, for good reason. -AB & MS
Tuesday, August 5
Drymouth Writing Collective Workshop, 4 pm, Somewhere (Probably Oakland?). For black-brown-punk-queer-mad-fiend-radical-freaks (or some of the above). Tagline is “You Can Lie.” Make up some good shit and have fun with your rad writer friends doing it. DM for location. [Instagram]
Glitter in the Glass 7PM, Shotgun Players (Ashby). A staged reading (which means scripts in hands but still) of a play moving between past and present, around a Confederate memorial and a Juneteenth celebration (plus, an artist has a deadline! HIGH drama). $20 for theatre and a glass of champagne. [Shotgun Players]
Also: Stop the Violence National Night Out Block Party at 1640 Stuart Street
Wednesday, August 6
[North Coast Bonus Event] Poetry reading by Cedar Sigo 6 pm, Bolinas Library (West Marin). Sigo writes in one poem, “There is / no other man / to enjoy / such fog / besides me”: welcome back to the Bay Area, fog friend. Sigo is a member of the Suquamish Nation and studied at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University with Ginsberg, Kyger, and all our beloveds. [Point Reyes Light]
The Player, 7PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). They let Robert Altman do a prequel to Seth Rogin’s The Studio. [BAMPFA]
Beyond Limits 6:30pm, Claremont Branch (Berkeley). Retired provider of third-trimester abortions Dr. Shelley Sella shares stories of caring for her patients who made decisions to bring less suffering into the world. [BPL]
Also: James Baldwin’s Another Country at Tally Ho’s Queer Book Club (Piedmont Ave)
Thursday, August 7
The Untouchables, 11am, The Elmwood (College Ave). It’s free! Movies made in the ‘80s are now classics, and if you’re at loose ends on a weekday midmorning (you dilettante you), watch Kevin Costner and Al Pacino go bang bang pow pow at each other for the cost of no dollars. [Rialto Cinemas]
A (sold out) West Oakland Walking Tour, 3:30PM, Prescott Market (West Oakland). Dave Peters (Black Liberation Walking Tour, West Oakland Cultural Action Network) will walk everyone who already got a ticket for an hour through decades of history, starting from the 16th Street Station (and “several other historical sites”) before returning to Raimondi Park and Prescott Market. If you go, ask why the site of the Wood St encampment is now a parking lot instead of housing. [eventbrite]
(Another) Wood Street documentary showing and panel, 6pm, Moments Co-Op (Downtown). Panel hosted by a member of the Coyote Media Collective with resident leaders from Wood Street Commons, and director Caron Creighton. SOLD OUT, GODDAMMIT. Give them money anyway, get this doc made. [eventbrite]
Mike Isaac on AI, 6:30PM, Oakland Main Library (Downtown). Mike Isaac is a New York Times technology correspondent who has done extensive reporting on Meta and Uber -- about which he wrote the book Super Pumped -- and Silicon Valley more broadly. Isaac will be joined by librarian Ian Hetzner to help us all to get a handle on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape. Can we get VCs to stop treating the internet like an oracle, for starters? [OPL]
Smiles of a Summer Night, 7PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Men are a species of beast who turn to women to save them from being totally humiliated, or so says Bergman. (That and a pair of testicles, says the Dude.) [BAMPFA]
Friday, August 8
Screening of Legacy of Love and East Oakland Rising and conversation with filmmaker Cheo Tyehimba Taylor and Carolyn Johnson of the Black Cultural Zone, 5 PM, OMCA (The Lake). In honor of Black August, watch two films about the collective determination of African American communities on the Bay Area landscape. Then listen to the conversation at 6 pm exploring topics like launching the first Black-led health center, tackling environmental racism, and a 10-year battle against unfair housing policies and gentrification in East Oakland. Johnson will share highlights from her lifelong commitment to the Black Arts and Culture legacy in Oakland. [OMCA]
Regurgitation Nation, 6 pm, Confloptus (Chinatown). An action long in the works by ava bolton & marlowe blantz. Potluck. DM for address. [instagram]
Poetry! is maybe not happening at Tamarack this Friday according to the schedule, but show up at 6:30 just in case and throw your own reading if the library is empty. Make sure to speak up so we can hear you on the stairs.
Daughters, Wives, and a Mother, 7PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). 1960 Japanese film about getting hit by a car and how family cohesion is an illusion. Sontag loved it, if that helps you decide. [BAMPFA]
August Wilson's Two Trains Running, 7 PM, BAM (Downtown). Opening night of the 1990 play set in Pittsburgh during the Civil Rights Movement about a Black man fighting the city’s efforts to raze a building and his restaurant. Huh, that happened here too. Seems strangely systemic. With the Lower Bottom Playaz, directed by Ayodele Nzinga. [Tickets]
Also: Kerouac’s Road at Elmwood (College Ave) / Climate Change, Students, and Stress at Lakeside chats (zoom)
Saturday, August 9
Spider stroll! 10AM, Fire Trail (Hills above Cal). Join Bay Nature and spider expert Trinity Walls for a hike in search of spiders. I like the pretty ones that camouflage themselves in flowers and the jumping kind with glistening iridescent eyes. [Bay Nature]
Temescal Open Edible Gardens Day (or TOEG for short), 10am to 4pm, Temescal (Temescal). Spend the day walking and exploring 20+ gardens in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland, on a self-guided tour (now in its third year!) with family friendly activities, including a fruit & veggie print-making "installation" station and screenprinting for your all-too-blank totes and tees! If you visit all of the gardens, you get Very Special Surprises (all followed by whispers of a very veg-full afterparty). [eventbrite]
Wozzeck, 2 PM, Oakland Scottish Rite Center (Lakeside). Alban Berg 1922 version of Georg Büchner’s play Woyzeck, which Büchner never finished, maybe because it was such a bummer. In German with surtitles (which hopefully is opera for subtitles). [tix]
David & Jonathan, 8 PM, Oakland Scottish Rite Center (Lakeside). Biblical story, French Baroque opera. Oakland has opera? Oakland has opera! [tix]
Dear John x Skinner, 11 am, 3807 Macarthur Blvd (The Laurel). The all-day opening of Dear John, a new gallery and gift space, featuring an immersive art show exploring the theme Fruits of Desire—a nod to mythologies of temptation, abundance, and forbidden longing by local artist Skinner who makes “psychedelic nightmare paintings.” I think the gifts here might not be suitable for children. [instagram]
Every Brilliant Thing, 8 pm, Live Oak Theater (Berkeley). A kid tries to convince her mother to stay alive, and this solo performance is interactive and comedic. Quite a goal to go for funny haha on suicidal depression. Also shows on Sunday. [eventbrite]
Also: Crossing to Safety at Rockridge Branch OPL (College Ave) / Death Cafe at BPL (Downtown Berkeley) / Love Despite the Apocalypse Cabaret and Fundraiser for Gaza at Understory (Fruitvale) / Corn Shucking Party with Shared Cultures (West Bay) / Circles & Mandalas: A Full Moon Art Workshop at JCAS (The Lake) / Book Signing with children's author Channa Bannis at Marcus Books (MLK) / Family Nature Adventures: Redwood Reptiles at Chabot Space & Science (The Hills)
Sunday, Aug 10
The Golden Rule Peace Boat, 12:30PM, New Parkway (Downtown). Film Screening and panel. “The first boat to engage in environmental direct action in the world.” #NoNukes. [New Parkway]
Dolores, 2PM, Oakland Scottish Rite Center (Lakeside). Opera! Music, Libretto, things of that nature. Dolores Huerta, iconic. $22. Oakland has opera! [tix]
A Wanderer’s Notebook, 4PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Mikio Naruse adapted sixteen of Fumiko Hayashi’s works, and this one is from Hayashi’s autobiography (“young Fumiko slugs her way through a succession of bad jobs and worse men”) and a final tribute. [BAMPFA]
North to the Future: An Offline Adventure Through the Changing Wilds of Alaska, 6 pm, Mrs Dalloway’s (College Ave). Ben Weissenbach shares his book about going into the Alaskan tundra, with little advance preparation, to study the region's response to climate change. I wonder why the marketing folks at Grand Central thought they needed to specify “offline” in the subtitle: is there a book about a VR journey to Alaska in the works? Satan, I rebuke thee. [Mrs Dalloway’s]
Poetry Night at The Long Haul, 6:30pm, The Long Haul Infoshop (Berkeley). Terra Oliveira reads from her new book, Itinerant Songs, with Oakland writers Lora Mathis, Ashia Ajani, and Ocean Escalanti. Great night with great local writers. Free! with books and zines for sale. [FB]
Also: Back to School Buy Nothing Bazaar with Albany and El Cerrito for Palestine (Albany)
Monday, Aug 11
Hot Girls With Balls, 7PM Clio’s (Lake). Benedict Nguyễn in conversation about her new novel, with Soleil Ho. [eventbrite]
