Poking shells into clay molds in good company while severely hungover while guided by a sweet Stanford art undergrad was a pretty solid way to start off last weekend, all things considered, just thank goodness the bright-eyed young artists creating Future Finds brought croissants. They’re still at it, with different workshops and lectures on a future ecology of the Bay Area! Also! I learned that Bathers Library is pronounced with a flat short "A"? In short, go to Future Finds, remember to drink water and eat carbs, and imagine futures both creepy and healing and new ways to pronounce things you thought you knew. There’s a call for a general nationwide strike on Friday the 30th, so maybe check in with our friends at the Bay Area Current for more on that front. If you're a bird person, there’s the Winged Migration Expo on Mare Island this weekend in Far Greater North Oakland. And if you’re a movie person, The New Parkway is hosting 100 Years of Movies with Berkeley City College on Mondays in February (we will allow it). While we’re on Berkeley: The Berkeleyest of Michaels was declared to be Pollan, surprising no one. "Who is Michael Lewis?" asked everyone, and an Unknown Michael beat him out for third. We may need to run this poll again with more Michaels to investigate further.
See you, January, it’s been weird.—MS, XL, TC, AB
Tuesday, January 27
Reprographixxx Print Café, 2pm, Long Haul Info Shop (Berkeley). Walk-in rapid press printing of your words, art, event poster, or whatever it is—at reasonable rates & without the microplastics of toner. Is porn allowed, possibly encouraged, based on the event title? Riso emotional support from Sirkka. [Reprographix]
Mobilize to Defend Our Communities, 3:30pm, County of Alameda offices (Downtown). Come to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting to support two critical measures to protect our immigrant neighbors from ICE: 1. An Immigration Enforcement Response Plan for rapid, coordinated action and 2. An ICE-FREE ZONES policy to protect our hospitals, services, and public spaces from enforcement. [Insta]
Before the Fire Dogs Steal the Sun: A book talk by Crystal Mun-hye Baik, 3:30pm, Social Sciences Building (Cal). An intimate cultural history of war, illness, banishment, and estrangement through the experiential lens of her family. The UC Riverside professor offers her immersion in Korean diasporic grief as a felt form of thinking and writing, rather than an object of study. [Cal]
Make Your Movie: The Power of Networks in Independent Filmmaking, 5:30pm, Alumni House (Cal). Shockingly, it’s who you know, and if you know someone who knows someone, even better. [Cal]
Grant Faulkner & Gail Butensky: something out there in the distance, with John McMurtrie, 6pm, Pegasus Books (Downtown Berkeley). Take a road trip in the desert through flash fiction paired with photography, in conversation with the East Bay’s best read John. (Pegasus)
Utopia Book Club, No. 1: The Dispossessed, 6pm, Local Economy (College Ave). Quick! They just opened a couple more slots to discuss what happens when East Bay (and sure, Portland) legend Ursula LeGuin imagines a utopia falling apart! [Luma]
The Voice of Hind Rajab, 6:15pm, The New Parkway (Uptown). Winner, Grand Jury Prize, 2025 Venice Film Festival. Tunisia’s official submission to the Oscars blends the actual phone recordings of the little girl who survived her family’s murder by Israeli forces only to die slowly while waiting for help with dramatizations of the emergency workers racing against time and the genocidal destruction that killed them too. [New Parkway]
Roam: Reconnecting Wildlife and Our World, 7pm, Clio's (The Lake). Join award-winning science journalist Hillary Rosner and the always-amazing Marissa Ortega-Welch (“How Wild” on KALW!) for a conversation on Rosner’s Roam, the inspiring story of reconnecting ecosystems, restoring wildlife corridors, and a future with fewer fences, no border walls, and more mountain lions in our cities (kidding but am I). [Eventbrite]
Wednesday, January 28
Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI, noon, Stephens Hall (Cal). Author Nina Beguš is joined by Hannes Bajohr to discuss fictional representations of AI in parallel with actual technological developments. Highlighting the impact of humanlike AI design, Beguš’s book explains that the people who should be consulted about AI are the humanities and book people. Obviously. [Townsend Center]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Kevin Killian's Padam Padam, 6pm, City Lights (North Beach). An evening of readings and discussion celebrating the publication of Padam Padam: Collected Poems by Kevin Killian. With Dodie Bellamy, Daniel Benjamin, Lindsey Boldt, Tonya Foster, Peter Gizzi, Evan Kennedy, Jason Morris, and Roberto Tejada. Not to be missed! Killian was 1) a committed Amazon reviewer and 2) so very important in shaping the Bay Area writing scene. [City Lights]
Demo Nights: Robin Sloan's Notebook, 6pm, Local Economy (College Ave). The olive oil mini-magnate, novelist, and occasional printer of poetry zines presents his newest project: the notebook. Yes, the humble notebook. But like so much of what Robin does so brilliantly, it has both analog and digital aspects. [Luma]
Cookbook Lovers Club: A Celebration of Tea, 6pm, Book Society (College Ave). Learn about the provenance of different teas, discover unexpected ways to use them in your kitchen, and even enjoy a moment of “tea meditation” to savor the present with Annelies Zijderveld, author of Steeped: Recipes Infused with Tea. I am sure they’ll delve into the East India Company’s key role in tea imports and British imperialism. [Book Society]
Sultry Sessions: Risqué Resolutions, 6:30pm, Zanzi Oakland (Uptown). Talk, sing, dance, about sex at the eroticism-focused open mic. January theme: What's your resolution? Maybe it’s to grab the mic tonight with both hands. [Eventbrite]
Reaping What She Sows: Women Rewriting the Rules of the Food System, 7pm, Clio’s Books (The Lake). Please join us for an intimate and urgent evening exploring how women are actively dismantling Big Food and replacing it with something better. With Nancy Matsumoto, Willow Blish, Dru Rivers of Full Belly Farm, Jamie Fanous of Community Alliance with Family Farmers, and Christian Washington of Comfort Collective. Comes with soup! [Eventbrite]
Lyrics & Dirges: A Monthly Poetry Series, 7pm, Pegasus Books (Downtown Berkeley). Tonight's readers are Former Richmond poet laureate Donté Clark, Palestinian American poet Lorene Zarou-Zouzounis, Jason Bayani (heard him read at Clio’s, WOW), and Paul Corman Roberts (who says he’s mostly just exhausted. Curated & hosted by Sharon Coleman. [Pegasus]
Sir Arne's Treasure, 7pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). A 1919 Swedish silent film from Mauritz Stiller, adapting a novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf. If you’re into ice, long beards, longer knives, early tracking shots, cool double exposures, and diacritical marks, this might be the movie for you. [BAMPFA]
Also: Shaping California Wine: Asian Cultural Influences at Donkey and Goat Winery (West Berkeley) / Fireside Chat w/ Nobel laureate Richard Thaler at Haas School of Business (Cal) / The Power Within: Somatic & Spiritual Stories of Resilience at Asian Branch OPL (Chinatown) / Burrowing Owls of César Chávez Park with Bay Nature (online)
Thursday, January 29
67th Annual White Elephant Sale Open Warehouse Days, 10am, White Elephant Sale (Jingletown). Head to opening day to get the rush of adrenaline from snagging that one-of-a-kind item you can't find anywhere else at Northern California's oldest and largest rummage sale, all to benefit the Oakland Museum of California. Maybe the Disney orgy poster is still looking for a friend. [OMCA]
Oakland Puzzle Company Store Grand Opening, 11am, New HQ (Eastlake). In case you don’t yet have the Long Lost Oakland Puzzle, now is the time to remedy that (plus their Fairyland puzzle is great for younger kids, and the Lake Merritt Watersheds one will teach you your creeks and keep many hands busy) [MeetUp]
Niccolò Machiavelli’s Love Poetry, 5pm, Dwinelle (Cal). The author of The Prince also wrote odes to fellow poet and courtesan Barbera and so, the professor will (probably) argue, literary scenes thrive on writers having drama. Noted. [Cal]
[West Bay Bonus Event Prime] Fonts Are Easy, Books Are Hard, 5:30pm, Letterform Archive (Dogpatch). Some thoughts on fonts, life, and the making of The Ohno Book: A Serious Guide to Irreverent Type Design with James Edmondson. [Letterform Archive]
Spring 2026 Opening Reception, 5:30pm, The Berkeley Institute (Downtown Berkeley). Connect with the place to think about thinking as they announce the semester theme, community read, and upcoming programming about mind and soul. Open to all. [Insta]
[West Bay Bonus Event Center Cut] Dream Jungle Exhibition Opening Reception, 6pm, SFAC Main Gallery (Civic Center). Taking its title from Jessica Hagedorn’s 2003 novel, the exhibition explores the tangle of truth and artifice behind imperial representation and foregrounds the tropics as a zone where the colonized land and body are scripted, cast, and costumed for imperial consumption. [Insta]
Apocalyptic Authoritarianism, 6pm, Pegasus Books (Downtown Berkeley). The subtitle of media scholar Hanna E. Morris’s book is “Climate Crisis, Media, and Power” and she looks at media coverage of climate change since 2016 and finds lots of nostalgia and neoreactionary bullshit. [Pegasus]
[SOLD OUT] Book Society + Litquake present: Mary Roach at the Table, 6pm, Book Society (College Ave). Mary Roach is busy and you can’t come, but you can still read the book she said was the best one she’d read in a long long time. It’s so good <the editor said unbiasedly>. [Book Society]
Tom Bentley-Fisher, 6:30pm, Books Inc. (Alameda). Reading etc by the local author from his debut novel The Boy Who Was Saved By Jazz, a coming-of-age novel with a pump organ in a barn and bisexual self-discovery in small town Saskatchewan. [Eventbrite]
[West Bay Bonus Event Bone In] Literary Speakeasy, 7pm, Martuni’s (North Beach). Readers are: Amy de Rouvray, poetry editor at 14 Hills Review; Kelly Egan, who writes from dream, reverie, and long drives; Giovanna Lomanto, Oakland poet and small press publisher; and Joe Wadlington, who might be an attachment planter. [Insta]
The Return of Ancient Epic: the Iliad, 7pm, Clio’s Books (The Lake). The first of seven conversations, in parts judgmental and strange, between past epics and the present world, with Anthony Long discussing Homer's Iliad. Haven’t read this since I was 13, but basically it’s lists of how men died over and over again, Achilles being petulant, and then the horse. [Eventbrite]
[SOLD OUT] The Soft Skin, 7pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Nominally a portrait of a fling between a young flight attendant and a Balzac expert with a slackening jaw line, this overlooked little gem is really a movie about how François Truffaut simply could not keep his Hitchcock in his pants. Enjoy the sensitive examination of bourgeois hypocrisies, if you wish, but know that the real love affair here is between Truffaut and the movies of the old master. Laura Truffaut, François's daughter, will introduce the film and lead a post-screening discussion, which you won’t hear unless you got in early on tickets. [BAMPFA]
American Border Religion (Elizabeth Hurd), 5pm, Dwinelle Hall (Cal). In her most recent book, political scientist Elizabeth Shakman Hurd argued that Americans treat their own national borders as religious objects. This talk draws on her book to explore, among other things, the possibility of refusing our Border Religion, which sounds pretty damn appealing right now. [Cal]
Repulsive Reads @North, 5pm, North Branch Berkeley Library (The Alameda Which Is A Road). The year’s first installment in a monthly book club celebrating unsettling and macabre literature. January’s pick is Hellbound Heart, Clive Barker’s classic novel about Frank, a horrible dead jerk who is so horny that he opens an interdimensional portal to come back to life. The story is the basis for the movie Hellraiser (directed by Barker himself), which you may recognize as the movie with the pale guy with all of the nails in his head. [BPL]
This Must be the Place: Writing the City, 6:30pm, Berkeley City Club (Where the Fancy Pool Is). Storytelling and serious talk about cities both local and those of Far Far Greater Oakland like the Bay Area exurb Manhattan. Featuring Alex Schafran, Chris Carlsson, Fernando Marti, John Beutler, Tony Samara, and Vinita Goyal. [Eventbrite]
Also: Oakland Garden Club: The Botany of Houseplants at Local Economy (Rockridge) / Field Hands Art-Driven Fundraiser for Clean Water + Shelter at 884 Geary (Tenderloin) / Profs & Pints SF: A Global History of Psychedelics at Bartlett Hall (Downtown SF) / How to End Family Policing at Berkeley Law (Cal)
Friday, January 30
Poetry! 6pm, Tamarack (Downtown). It just keeps going! These heroes. Year Two begins with Sushant Malhotra (Oakland fiction writer), Mary Austin Speaker (“I can’t sleep / for being alive”), and Lorraine Lupo (“The moon keeps me company”). Guest hosted by Ken Walker. [Tamarack Poetry Schedule]
In the Mood for Love, 4pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Spend an afternoon trying not to yell “Just fuck already" at the screen. [BAMPFA]
Always Hungry Never Perfect Release Party and Rugs Pop Up, 5pm, Dream Farm Commons (Downtown). Another “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell”-esque event. Attendees can celebrate the release of a new comic book by Oakland artist Ariel Cooper AND play around with a rug frame and other fabric art tools. [Insta]
[North Bay Bonus Event] Bait Reading Series, 6pm, Sausalito Public Library (Sausalito). Tomas Moniz (Oakland novelist!), Jon Hickey (West Bay novelist!), Sommer Schafer (writer of fantastical fiction!), and Lexi Pandell (Oakland journalist!) all read their work. [SPL]
Robert Beavers: Program 1, 7pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). The avant-gardist Robert Beavers, who for a time refused any public screenings of his work in the United States, gets a career retrospective from BAMPFA. The first program features his early work, with Beavers sitting down with BAMPFA’s Susan Oxtoby for a conversation. Film Comment characterizes his oeuvre as “extraordinarily demanding, uncompromising, plotless films of often heart-stopping beauty,” as if he were Jerry Lewis or something. [BAMPFA]
Friday Films: Earth's Greatest Enemy, 7pm, EastSide Arts Alliance (The Twomps). Spoiler: Earth’s greatest enemy is the US military! [ESAA]
Film & Flick Friday, 7:30pm, Tempyl Skin Studio (Golden Gate-ish). The ideal date: a short indie film by a local artist followed by a feature film, but you have no idea which films are screening ahead of time so you won’t spoil the plot by reading Wikipedia. Dinner and wine included. [Luma]
Also: Collab Night at Discover Community Cafe (Clawson/Dogtown) / The Bike Fix at the 81st Avenue Branch Library (Fitchburg)
Saturday, January 31
Shaping Oakland For Present and Future Generations’ Extraordinary Lives, 11:30am, African American Museum and Library at Oakland (West Oakland). Come for a meet and greet of the FSAAMLO board and enjoy a film screening of the elders' oral history narratives. Part of an ongoing exhibit you can check out if you don’t make it over today. [OPL]
The Tallest Dwarf, noon, Hipline (Grand Lake). I can’t remember the last time I saw a film screening preluded with a guided somatic “warm-up.” This film is the latest from filmmaker Julie Wyman, who has been exploring the relationship between bodies and selfhood since her breakthrough 2000 documentary, A Boy Named Sue. Wyman will guide attendees through a movement and play workshop that persists for the entire duration of the film itself. [Insta]
Oakland Wiki Edit-a-thon, 1pm, Main Library (Downtown). Oakland Wiki is one of our city’s most valuable resources, and yet essential reference texts such as the pages on The Center for Tactical Magic, Local Birthday Deals, or Keeping Ducks in Oakland are in a sorry, stubby state. This library-spearheaded workshop is designed to build a new army of Oakland Wiki editors so that one day the Best of the Oakland Police Department Community Survey page can reach its true potential. [Insta]
[Bonus West Bay Event The Former] Our Language, Our Story - Closing Reception + Artist Talk, 1pm, Galería de la Raza Studio Studio 24 (Mission). A conversation around immigrant voices, community wisdom, and collective resilience with photographer Joyce Xi, The Window Project’s Sergio de la Torre, and Winnie Kao Senior Council at the Asian Law Caucus. Discuss with them the role of art in cultural narrative change. [Eventbrite]
Robert Beavers: Program 2, 2pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). More from the avant-gardist Robert Beavers—see Program 1 on Friday—who will be in residence until Feb. 7. This slate of films from 1970 (remastered recently) includes Palinode, of which Beaver is reported to have made while telling himself, "Don’t let yourself know what that film is about while you are making it" and we’d suggest going in with the same goal. Also Diminished Frame and Still Light. [BAMPFA]
Robert Beavers: Program 3, 4:30pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Still more of it! From the Notebook of… is deep self-reflexivity from Beavers, a film about making a film about da Vinci in Florence, and The Painting intercuts traffic in Bern with the 15th-century The Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus. [BAMPFA]
Celebrating Sidework by Sasha Hom, 5pm, Nomadic Bookshop (Uptown). A lyric, page-turning novella from Black Lawrence Press by a waitressing Korean adoptee mother of four who lives in a tent in the woods about a waitressing Korean adoptee mother of four who gets kicked out from a tent in the woods. [Nomadic]
~FUTURE FINDS~ Tropical Futurism, 5pm, Bathers Library (Uptown). Anastasha Rachel Gunawan draws technology lessons from tropical forests and the spiritual systems of Indonesia and Myanmar. [Future Finds]
~FUTURE FINDS~ History and Stories of Climate Migration, 6pm, Bathers Library (Uptown). Rwaida Gharib asks, "How do we live in a drowning world? To live on a changing planet is to navigate the tension between mitigation, adaptation and migration: how do we decide when to repair, mend, or restart anew?" [Future Finds]
[Bonus West Bay Event The Too Later] Lost Landscapes of San Francisco: Creativity, Style, Resistance & Freedom, 6:30pm, Internet Archive (Inner Richmond, SF). Lost Landscapes is one of the greatest running events in the Bay Area, with master-archivist Rick Prelinger opening the tin on hundreds of archival reels, from home movies to promotional video b-roll to highway safety videos. Many have never been seen by the public before, but all of them will upend your sense of Bay Area history. SOLD OUT even though they added a second night to this second run! [Eventbrite]
~FUTURE FINDS~ On Futurities, 7pm, Bathers Library (Uptown). Kola Heyward-Rotimi asks how envisioning a world yet-to-come affects our immediate present. How does futurity as a tool shape the places we live? What are the material effects of “envisioning the future”?
The Hand, 7pm, BAMPFA. “Never touched a woman before?” sighs courtesan Gong Li to youthful apprentice Chang Chen. “Then how can you be a tailor?” Wow, it sounds like this Wong Kar-wai film is going to include muted eroticism and unrequited yearning? First time for everything, I guess. SOLD OUT, as it should be. [BAMPFA]
Fuck FL0CK Party and ACILEP Benefit Show, 8pm, Tamarack (Downtown). Santa Cruz already beat us in the race to be the first city in California to cancel their contract with mass surveillance contractor Flock Security, but you can still tell the surveillance state to flock off and support the anti-ICE community alert system at Tamarack this weekend. Featuring an impressive cross-genre lineup of local acts including SOENEIDO (Oakland breakbeat), Yama Uba (Oakland darkwave), and Mind Mirage (Oakland ambient). [Insta]
Also: Lunar New Year Lion Dancing at the César E. Chávez Branch Library (Fruitvale) / First Crush Wine Launch Party at 3319 Marche (Grand Lake). / Progress Report at CONFLOPTUS Oakland (Chinatown/DM for address)
Sunday, February 1
Free First Sundays at OMCA, 11am, OMCA (The Lake). Okay, so admittedly not everything is free on Free First Sundays, only the main exhibit halls. But special exhibit tickets are slashed down to a mere six bux, and February is your last chance to catch the excellent special exhibit on Black resistance to displacement in the East Bay, so it’s still the best deal in town. The math maths! [OMCA]
[Way Northwest Bonus Event] Help the Kelp: Film Screening & Community Celebration, 3pm, Dance Palace (Point Reyes Station). Sequoias of the Sea tells the story of Mendocino County’s disappearing kelp forests and the devastating impact on coastal communities. This event features artists Josie Iselin (author of The Curious World of Seaweed); Lina Prairie, who weaves baskets from beached kelp; and illustrator Laurie Sawyer. [Insta]
Someday Poetry Reading, 3pm, Pegasus Books (Downtown Berkeley). An occasional reading series focused on literary intersections with medicine/science/nature held close to the full moon. Featuring poets Heather Bourbeau, Shikha Malaviya, Lisa Rosenberg, Maw Shein Win, and the moon. [Pegasus]
Self-Portraits Ex Machina Poetry Book Release and Birthday Party, 4pm, Nomadic Bookshop (Downtown). Author Devi S. Laskar in conversation with Sabina Khan-Ibarra and bringing poetry games to the party. [Insta]
[Bonus West Bay Event] Vespers for the Lovers, 5pm, Horsies (Mission). Another great combo: hear a talk about doomed Victorian romance, make some Valentine cards, read aloud an old love letter that still haunts you, nosh. English graduate students and other bleeding hearts will be in attendance. [Insta]
Also: Slow Food East Bay Annual Community Gathering at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists (North Berkeley) / Sock Darning with Van at Small Talk City (North Berkeley) / African American Quilt Guild of Oakland: Gee's Bend Quilt Display at Melrose Branch Library (Oakland)
