Welcome back, things are up and running at full speed now! First ORB Happy Hour of the new year is this Thursday, and it’s the first one held east of the lake (FINALLY). In new old things, the restored and reopened Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts celebrates its opening weekend! Future Finds continues taking over Bathers all month long—go say hi and get a ticket to one of their events; the opening was rad. There’s a lot of art happening all over the West Bay for SF Art Week: Our votes are for the Radius Books Pop-Up Bookstore in collaboration with FOR-SITE at Fort Mason in The Store House starting Thursday; the book arts programming (see calendar); and the very existence of the anti-SF Art Week art fair ATRIUM at Minnesota Street Project. I saw a sign on a pole for a weird girl fiction bookclub so now you know about it, too, plus Oakland Library heard we needed help mending and has plenty of opportunities to learn and practice repair this winter. You’re allowed to do comedy sometimes, and Sketchfest in the West Bay is one of those times, which is now. I looked up at the marquee (why isn’t that spelled marquis?) of Grand Lake Theatre and Sinners was back—it’s true! We can’t get enough! Limited return engagement for the next week. And if you can, show solidarity with Minneapolis by walking out on Tuesday or Friday, do it with your friends, set up a group text in Signal.—MS & XL
Tuesday, January 20
Free America Walkout, 2pm, wherever you are. A coordinated national action: walk out of work, school, and commerce. Withhold your labor, your participation, and your consent to this regime. [Women’s March]
Book launch: The Profligate Colonial, 5pm, Dwinelle Hall (Cal). Lisandro Claudio reveals how austerity, long before it became a buzzword of modern technocracy, was a tool of US empire in the Philippines. It’s less about economics than about a deep-rooted politics of control—one born in empire and still alive in policy today. [UCB]
Oakland Stand For Good, 5pm, Lake Merritt (The Colonnade). Join a public action of noncompliance with the Trump regime. Many different activities planned, including: a march, T-shirt making station, chalking art activities, a dance party, and finding heart and courage in solidarity. [Mobilize]
[West Bay Bonus Event] 8 Hours of Rest: SoiL Thornton opening reception, 5pm, Wattis Institute (The College That Sold Out to Vanderbilt). SoiL Thornton presents new and existing works, continuing their ongoing exploration of rest. This is the second of three exhibitions (8 Hours of Work, 8 Hours of Rest, 8 Hours of What You Will) dedicated to the theme of labor. [Wattis]
Reading and discussion with Anita Barrows, 6:30pm, Pegasus Books, Berkeley (Solano Avenue). Poet, novelist, and psychologist Anita Barrows celebrating the release of her latest poetry collection, Some Figs, joined in conversation by KPFA radio host Dennis Bernstein. [Insta]
John Sayles introduces his new novel, Crucible, 7pm, Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore (College Ave). The independent film director and novelist on his new book: a complex and sweeping historical novel about Henry Ford—the Elon Musk of his day—and his attempt to rule not only an automotive empire but the rambunctious city of Detroit. [Mrs Dalloway’s]
Also: Recology Artist in Residence Talks by Haley Mae Caranto, Jim Growden, Miguel Novelo, and Trina Michelle Robinson at Recology Art Studios (West Bay) / Book Club at Lakeview Branch OPL (The Lake) / SHACK15 Artist Fellows Group Exhibition Opening Reception at Shack15 (Ferry Building) / Black Authors Book Club at West Oakland Branch OPL (West Oakland) / SOLD OUT: Seasonal Mending Circle at Local Economy (Rockridge)
Wednesday, January 21
Storytime for Caregivers with Nina Renata Aron, 10am, Local Economy (Rockridge). Aron is the author of Good Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls, a memoir and cultural history of codependency. Last week, some of your favorite local calendar makers got together over coffee, and Christina (Same Page SF) raved about previous S4C gatherings, so find your bookish community here and DON’T talk about parenting for a while. [Luma]
Prof. Alison Gopnik, "Large AI Models as a Cultural and Social Technology," noon, Institute of Personality and Social Research (Cal). Prof. Gopnik, who knows a few things, argues Large Language Models should not be viewed primarily as intelligent agents but as a new kind of cultural and social technology, allowing humans to take advantage of information other humans have accumulated. It’s just a computer, guys—go read a book if you want to experience immersion in another brain. [UCB]
[West Bay Bonus Event The Triangularest] Pages in Practice → Exploring Artists’ Books in Action, 1pm, Transamerica Pyramid (Financial District). A focused show-and-tell of five works selected from the exhibition Who Is America at 250? Artists' Books on the State of Democracy. Learn about the creative decisions behind each work and ask, America who? Why book? Is art? [Eventbrite]
Empty Set Magazine discussion group, 6pm, Local Economy (Near the Cursed Intersection). Kind of a magazine club, for reading and thinking leftistly about tech. Go to the Gopnik talk, then here, and make a tech-critical day of it. First issue’s theme is decay, because links rot and the mechanical rusts. [Luma]
Meet the author: Darwin BondGraham, 6pm, Oakland Main Library (Downtown). A conversation with The Oaklandside's news editor and coauthor of The Riders Come Out at Night. BondGraham will be joined by librarian Ian Hetzner for a candid discussion on the state of journalism at a local level, what it's like covering City Hall and the OPD, the news landscape now and in the future, and all that jazz. [OPL]
Kiss And Tell Literary Salon, 6:30pm, Books Inc. (Alameda). Veronica Wolff and Christina Britton are gonna be there with (respectively) their YA time travel romantasy in kilts and Regency romance books. So many steely thews! [Eventbrite]
Radical Ahjumma on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée, 7pm, Womb House Books (Temescal Alley). Radical Ahjumma, a feminist collective of writers from the Korean diaspora, will discuss Bay Area artist and Cal grad Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée, a genre-challenging ode to grief, memory, and love that centers women from myth, religion, history and Cha’s own ancestors. It was published in 1982, so you’ve done the reading, right? [Eventbrite]
Dick Evans & Hannah Hindley's In the Shadow of the Bridge: Birds of the Bay Area, 7pm, Mrs. Dalloway's (College Ave). Local photographer and writer share what makes the Bay Area so special for birds and people who use bird as a verb. [Mrs D’s]
The Outlaw and His Wife, 7pm, BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). You Knausgaarded last week, now roll east for more Nord. “This is without doubt the most beautiful film in the world!” declared director and critic Louis Delluc about this 1918 Swedish film, but he died in 1924, so take that with a grain of century-old salt. [BAMPFA]
[West Bay Bonus Event Almost At the Beach] "Mothering as Creative Practice," 7pm, Black Bird Bookstore (Outer Sunset). A conversation with Christie George, author of The Emergency was Curiosity, on motherhood, creativity, and attention with Same Page SF founder Christina Pappas. Follow your curiosity, see where it will take you, like out to where you can see the Pacific. [Black Bird Bookstore]
R&B trivia, 7pm, 51 & Tel (Temescal). This month's theme is Neo-Soul. Hadiyah, who hosts, says, “If you’re the type of person to know the song this just released D’Angelo leak became and who sings it, I wanna see you at trivia!” Second place gets a $50 gift card to Burdell’s (oooh), so aim for that A-minus. [Partiful]
Also: Tsuru for Solidarity Bay Area Member Meeting at J-SEI (Emeryville) / Midrash or Myth? An Aggada about the Prince of the Sea at The Magnes (Downtown Berkeley) / Niloufar Khonsari: The Future is Collective at Rockridge OPL (Neighborhood Formerly Known as Shafter) / Dimond Book Club at Dimond OPL (There Is No "A" In It) / Botanical Drawing with Hannah Hirsekorn at 2727 California (Berkeley) / 1,000 Ways to Hold: A Participatory Workshop with Erika Chong Shuch at Djerassi (The Peninsula) / 2026 Public Domain Film Remix Contest Screening & Party at the Internet Archive (Outer Richmond)
Thursday, January 22
ORB Happy Hour, 5pm, Ghost Town Brewery (The Laurel). Hang out with your local book-loving vibe reporters, east of the lake this time. There’s so much Oakland, it just keeps going.
Terrance Hayes’s So To Speak. 5pm, Nomadic Bookshop (Uptown). Join Tino V.H. Jr. at The Poet’s Bookshelf, a new poetry bookclub/writing workshop diving deep into a single poet’s body of work. Every month, there will be a new poet to read. After the discussion, launch into a writing workshop exploring that poet’s style. [Square]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Stir Reading Series, 5pm, Cafe Suspiro (Soma West). Socialize, then listen to local futurist in all genres Annalee Newitz, Mukethe Kawinzi (the GOAT of goatherd poets), Filipino-American poet Jason Bayani, and speculative novelist Sam J. Miller. [Cafe Suspiro]
"The Wandering Officer: New Databases for Police Accountability," 6pm, Kinfolx (Downtown). Explore how data, journalism, and community organizing are reshaping what’s possible for police accountability in California and beyond. Speakers: Uncle Bobby X, Prof Jack Glaser, Cat Brooks, and Amanda Majail-Blanco. [Action Network]
"Choosing Wholeness Over Goodness," a workshop with Elise Loehnen, 6pm, Book Society (College Ave). Make a resolution not to be good and drink to it. [Book Society]
"Black Film Unscreened & Unstreamed, Eyes on the Prize III," 6:30pm, Oakstop at 1721 Broadway (Downtown). Inspired by Henry Hampton’s legendary documentary series Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement, this new installment illuminates the bold stories of people and communities who continue to work for equity and racial justice in the years since the birth of the American Civil Rights Movement. Episodes 2 & 3. [Eventbrite]
Reproductive Freedom Happy Hour, 6:30pm, RSVP for location (The Dimond in General). A determined, undefeated gathering for what would have been the 53rd anniversary of the original Roe v. Wade ruling before Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett lied under oath to Congress about their adherence to precedent. Register by Tuesday to attend! [PPAM]
[West Bay Bonus Event The Westest] Hail Murray! The Punk Photography of Murray Bowles, 1982-1995, 7pm, Green Apple Books on the Park (The Sunset). Murray Bowles was the most influential and beloved photographer of the Bay Area punk scene and this new book celebrates it from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s. With Oakland-based editor Anna Brown, born and raised in Berkeley. [Green Apple]
Stolen Kisses, 7pm, BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). SOLD OUT movie directed by François Truffaut about a guy bad at all his jobs but quite good at flaneuring and falling in love in Paris. Introduction and post-screening discussion by Laura Truffaut—is that last name just really common in France? [BAMPFA]
Dispatches from Resistant Mexico, featuring the premiere of Lekil Kujlejal, 7pm, EastSide Arts Alliance (Deep East). A series of shorts on Indigenous resistance in Mexico. Films by Chiapas Support Committee member Caitlin Manning, who is present for discussion after the screening. [Eastside Arts Alliance]
Book of Light Poetry Series: James Cagney, 7pm, Books Inc. (Alameda). Author of Ghetto Koans: A Personal Archive, a core text on the ORB syllabus. In conversation with the host of Sights and Sounds on KALW, author Jenee Darden. [Eventbrite]
Also: Projection, "Emancipation and Criticality: Half a Century of Palestinian Cinema" with Rasha Salti at Cal (Berkeley) / Sashiko Decorative Mending Workshop at Mills Makerspace (Millsmont) / Club Curiosity at Saint Joseph's Arts Society (Soma) / Sculpture Hike at Djerassi (Peninsula) / Visions of Unearthly Splendor with Stephen Kaltenbach and Jordan Stein at SFMOMA (West Bay) / "Whoever Rules the Waves Rules the World: Sea Power and the Law of the Sea" over lunch at Berkeley Law (Cal) [this is included purely because I am enamored with the entire concept of the law of the sea and it is totally nonliterary and probably just for law students but come on how could you resist a title like that]
Friday, January 23
Ice Out of Everywhere, 4pm, Fruitvale BART Plaza (Fruivale). Join local workers and organizers to rally in honor of the historic Minneapolis general strike (Day of Truth and Freedom) called by Minnesota unions and the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation. [Insta]
[West Bay Bonus Event The Bestest] Alley Poems Launch, 5:30pm, Golden Sardine (North Beach). The alley comes inside! At the mic are local writers amalea bea, Ashley Halligan, Leslie Beach, Alexis Madrigal, JiaJing Liu, Marthine Satris (hi!), and Hannah Hindley reading poems written for hangouts in Kerouac Alley on First Fridays in 2025. Get a copy of the very limited edition zine of the poems—one night only! [Insta]
One Year Poetry Anniversary Par-tay!, 6pm, Tamarack (Downtown). Readings by goddamn fine local and visiting poets every Friday all year long! There’s been so much poetry that an entire baby exists now who didn’t when this series started! Thank you Willa, Joni, Violet, Sophia, Kevin, Noor, Steve, and Lindsey for corralling poets, and filling up the library and the stairwell every Friday. Dance party to follow, where no one is allowed to read poetry, only to move like it. [Tamarack Poetry Schedule]
[West Bay Bonus Event Another] Opening reception: Who Is America at 250? Artists' Books on the State of Democracy, 6pm, San Francisco Center for the Book (Design District). I hear tell there’s arts happening everywhere this week, but we’re the Oakland Review of Books so we try to stay vaguely true to our mission and suggest you consider the art of the BOOK. [SFCB]
Community Open Mic, 6:30pm, Nomadic Bookshop (Uptown). Nomadic is stacking up a lineup so packed now that they’re open that all the community you need will be inside those doors all week long and now they’ve taken over. [Insta]
[West Bay Bonus Event Tres] Idris Robinson on The Revolt Eclipses Whatever the World Has to Offer, 7pm, 34 Trinity (FiDi). Published by Semiotext(e), The Revolt Eclipses has a blurb from Joshua Clover that calls Robinson a warrior-poet, and you know we love an alley, so stop on by after the poems wrap up at Golden Sardine and before you hop back on BART. [Insta]
Book release celebration for In the Worldwide Family of Militant Women, 8pm, Eastside Arts Alliance (Deep East). Hear from author Arlene Eisen about her hybrid social history and memoir of the anti-imperialist women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s. “The book opens to a scene many women may identify with: in a seedy hotel, making love for the first time, without pleasure, and hemorrhaging.” [Insta]
Also: Pack the Court and Rally for Guillermo at the ICE West Bay HQ (FiDi) / Skate the Town at the Henry J. Kaiser Arena (Civic Center) / Punx for Palestine Benefit Show at Eli’s Mile High Club (Longfellow) / Ceasefire Night Walk at St. Columba Catholic Church (Paradise Park/Golden Gate) / Ramsey Robinson at the Oakland Liberation Center (Fruitvale)
Saturday, January 24
"Palestine and Palestinians Pre October 7th," 10am, Albany Library (Far North Oakland). The first of a series of informal lectures on Palestine and the Palestinian people by Barry Preisler based on his Sonoma State course, starting with the rise of Zionism and what happened next (partition, apartheid, atrocities, genocide). [Indybay]
"Volcanos, Labyrinths, Quarries and Newts," 10am, Main Sibley Staging Area (Skyline Boulevard). Two and a half miles of hiking past, over, and through everything promised in the title. Touch grass and a newt, you probably need it (wash your hands after petting newts though, they’re toxic!). [EBRPD]
Oakland Main Library 75th kickoff Ccelebration, 11am, Main Library (Downtown). You don’t look a day older than 50! Celebrate one of Oakland’s finest institutions over cake, trivia, the Hear Here truck and community billboard for Oakland story sharing, cake, history exhibits, cake, a costume contest, and cake. 1950s attire encouraged, so girdle up, girlies [inclusive]. [OPL]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Cybersentics Book Club: New Mind, New Body, noon, Gray Area / Grand Theater (The Mission). Join bookclub host Anastasia Chernysheva for the first monthly book club exploring the human sensorium through the lens of art and technology. This month, discuss Barbara Brown's 1974 bestseller on biofeedback alongside the long history of human-computer interfacing and self-augmentation and how to not become Bryan Johnson. [Gray Area]
"¡Nuestras Raíces: Our Stories!," 1pm, Berkeley Public Library (West Branch). The Berkeley Historical Society & Museum will guide you through a narrative writing exercise in celebration of their current exhibit, Berkeley's Latino Community: A Story of Pride and Resilience. Share your family reminiscences, like when your mom finally told that long-guarded story about the time your uncle kicked a cop down an apartment stairwell during a house party in Fullerton in the '70s. [BPL]
"Adaptations For All!," 1:30pm, Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve (Antioch). Learn about evolutionary niches, but mostly learn about Black Diamond Mines, which is being targeted by the feds for oil drilling in the latest ass-backery of the regime dedicated to doing everything wrong. [EBRPD]
Panel discussion: "How This Place Is Made," 2pm, Berkeley Art Center (North Berkeley). A wide-ranging conversation about the natural-cultural landscape of the Bay Area with East Bay artists Torreya Cummings and Sarah Lowe, environmental educator Stephanie Romano, and Oakland geologist and Heyday author (and ORB paid subscriber! And ORB Happy Hour attendee!) Andrew Alden. [Eventbrite]
"On the Waterfront: Art at Work," 2pm, Tamarack (Downtown). Longshoremen with the Waterfront Writers and Artists (WWA) began documenting the transformation of Bay Area ports beginning in the late 1970s, producing an incredible corpus of poetry, film, and other art. This gathering organized by Long Haul Magazine includes a conversation with WWA members, a poetry reading, and a film screening, presumably of something other than that traitor Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront. [Insta]
An Afternoon with the Author: Discussion of Done in the Dark, 2pm, Oakland Public Library (Elmhurst). The event organizers somehow forgot to name the author of “Done in the Dark,” but that’s what ORB is for: it’s East Bay writer Tamara Morgan. [OPL]
시( )nawi( )fugue, 2pm, BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). The “inauguration activation” of artist Jesse Chun’s multimedia performance series influenced by the legacy of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, best remembered as the author of the language-melting Dictée, which you already read and then discussed Wednesday night at Womb House. [BAMPFA]
[West Bay Bonus Event the Second] Golden Sardine 2nd Anniversary Party, 2pm, Golden Sardine (North Beach). A full roster of poetry readings (Mukethe! Derick Brown! devorah major! and more!), food and wine, and music. The party goes all night! (To be clear, this is the Bay Area so that means it ends at 9). [Insta]
The Movement Book Club @North, 2pm, Berkeley Public Library (North). Yes, this is the sixth event at 2pm this Saturday. Never let it be said that there is nothing to do in January. This month’s book selection is The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, famous for her history of mosses. [BPL]
STRATA (WHP Open House), 3pm, Winslow House Project (Vallejo). If there are leylines, one runs under Winslow House. This place is home to creative art weirdness of all kinds and wants you to come make more. Go check out what they’re doing. [WHP]
[West Bay Bonus Event Three] Closing Night Art Plática with Tortilla Press, 4pm, Medicine for Nightmares (The Mission). Stop by for an afternoon art platica with Michael Papias to hear the stories behind the show Familia-r: The Vaquera/x/o through a Mexican-American Lens and learn why this photographer makes his project titles so long. [Medicine for Nightmares]
Reflections after a book tour, 5pm, Nomadic Books (Downtown). Not quite a book talk, not quite a wrap party, this is a conversation between two authors who recently finished up book tours about the emotionally turbulent (and physically exhausting) era immediately following a new book release: Ariel Gore (Rehearsals for Dying: Digressions on Love and Cancer) and Sezin Devi Koehler (Much Ado About Keanu: A Critical Reeves Theory). [Nomadic Books]
Also: California Writer's Club at the Rockridge Branch Library / Remembering Love: A Group Exhibition and Silent Auction for the Yassir Family in Gaza at Soul Blends Coffee (Clawson/Dogtown) / Whistlemania Packet Assembly Party at a private address (North Oakland) / Oaktown Jazz Workshops at the Oakland Main Library (Civic Center) / Fandango Por La Vida: Son Jarocho vs. Megaprojects of Death at Eastside Arts Alliance (San Antonio) / "Captured! By Robots" at Thee Stork Club (Koreatown-Northgate) / SOLD OUT Bricolage at Clio’s Books (The Lake) / LAND AND SEA presents: The Art of Necessity: Archiving Hardcore at Et al. (The Mission)
Sunday, January 25
Rob Reiner Tribute Marathon, 10am, The New Parkway (Uptown). Start in the morning, stay all day. With a mystery screening to close it out at 9:30pm. [New Parkway]
Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour, 10am, Berkeley (Downtown Berkeley). SOLD OUT like always, now and the 2pm. Get on it quicker, lads. [Instagram]
Free Community Day / Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Multiple Offerings, 11am (all day), BAMPFA (Berkeley). You talked with the aunties on Wednesday, saw the Jesse Chun performance on Saturday, you stayed up late all week reading Dictée, now you are finally ready for the full Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Immersive Xperience. [BAMPFA]
Book Club: Parable of the Sower, 1pm, Soul Blends Coffee (Clawson/Dogtown). A fascist president, runaway climate change, growing corporate control of all aspects of civil life in an increasingly apocalyptic California, and that’s just the first chapter (are we just in the first chapter? oh god). Meet the members of your future affinity group over a sobering discussion about Octavia Butler’s classic 1993 novel. [Insta]
Zine-making Workshop with Rena Tom, 1pm, Local Economy (Formerly Known as Shafter). Learn how to lay out a little book. There’s geometry involved, but Rena's here to help. [Luma]
Documentary Screening and Discussion: Reparations, 2pm, Oakland Asian Cultural Center (Chinatown). The followup to John Osaki’s 2018 feature film about the internment of Japanese Americans (Alternative Facts), this short points out opportunities for solidarity between Asian Americans and Black Americans in the fight for reparations for historical harms. Runtime is a quick half hour, and Osaki himself will be present afterwards to discuss reparations with Donald K. Tamaki (an attorney who worked on the Korematsu trial) and local activist Pastor Michael McBride. [Insta]
Jules and Jim, 3:30pm, BAMPFA (Downtown Berkeley). This movie is so good, every frame is just bursting with ceaseless happiness. I have admittedly only seen the first half, but surely the jubilant mood is sustained until the end, in classic French style. This SOLD OUT screening includes an introduction and post-screening discussion with the French actress Laura Truffaut, who, it turns out, is the daughter of the celebrated director (quelle suprise!). [BAMPFA]
67th Annual White Elephant Preview Sale, 6pm, White Elephant Sale (Jingletown). Help OMWB raise money for OMCA and find some of the treasures that Kelly left behind because they couldn’t fit in her classic Volvo station wagon. I hear there’s a poster of Disney characters in an orgy looking for a forever home. [White Elephant Sale]
Also: Adult Mandarin Chinese Mixer at Kinfolx Cafe (Uptown) / Playdate for Palestine: Baby Storytime at Jerusalem Coffee House (Shafter) / Imperfect Caregiving at Local Economy (Rockridge) / Journaling Club at Book Society (College Ave) / Alice Jones & Denise Newman at Book Passage Corte Madera (North Bay)
