Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, July 15 – July 21
Teachers are supposed to be on summer break but instead they’re raising money for the Oakland Education Association’s Rapid Response Legal Defense Fund for local families threatened by deportation. Chip in. Meanwhile, the library gave you homework – turn in your diorama starting next week 7/21. Stone fruit are falling, so turn them into wine before they hit the ground: get started this weekend with plums, and watch out for WCW who is always trying to get his hands on them, so sweet and so cold. Keep going to the theatre, keep going to the protests where there is also theatre this week. -MS
Tuesday, July 15
Pack the Court for Guillermo, 8:45AM, Phillip Burton Federal Building (West Bay). Support a community member fighting to stay out of ICE custody. [instagram]
Unplug PG&E, 2:30PM, Oakland City Hall (Oakland). PG&E is—and hear me out here—bad and sucks, and did you know they’re convicted murderers? Prison abolition is a reality already for corporations: now do everyone else. Join the utility justice campaign and call on Oakland City Council to support the state’s Senate Bill 332, part of a move to transition away from investor-owned PG&E to a not-for-profit utility. [actionnetwork]
Oakland Poetry Slam, 6:30PM, Tamarack (Downtown). Slam a shot, slam a poem, take a turn at the “wide open” mic. [eventbrite]
A Thousand Pines, 7PM, La Peña (Berkeley). A Thousand Pines explores the lives of migrants who depend on the controversial guest worker visa program, following a crew of workers from Oaxaca, Mexico, as they plant commercial pine forests throughout the United States. The documentary film shows their struggle with the physically demanding work and extreme isolation, while rooting in connection to their families back home and with each other. Stay and talk with the filmmakers Sebastián Díaz Aguirre and Noam Osband after the showing. [eventbrite]
Jackie Thomas-Kennedy's Book Launch for The Other Wife, 7PM, Mrs. Dalloway’s (College Ave). Celebrate the day of publication of the novel that Ilana Masad reviewed in The Washington Post as “A marvelous study in how much desire lives in memory, in nostalgia and in fantasy.” Aren’t novels always envelopes for our feverishly desirous dreams? Figuring it out, in conversation with Carol Edgarian. [eventbrite]
Also: Poets William Archila, Lori Bedikian, Leticia Hernández-Linares, and Dorianne Laux at The Booksmith (West Bay) / Waiting for Britney author Jeff Weiss with Zack Ruskin and Emma Silvers at Book Passage (West Bay)
Wednesday, July 16
[North Bay Bonus Event] Poetry, hand to mouth/ Words Spoken Out, 6:30PM, Rebound Books (San Rafael). The launch of Terra Oliveira’s poetry collection Itinerant Songs, a book about labor, lineage, pilgrimage and recovery, and life as a working class woman in the U.S. With Marin Poet Laureates in the plural joining in. [facebook]
Wood Street Documentary, 6pm, Oakstop (Downtown). Support the in-progress documentary about Oakland's (formerly) largest homeless encampment: “John and LaMonté—two unhoused men turned community leaders— organize their neighbors in the face of displacement, addiction, and a failing social system.” [eventbrite]
Floating Clouds 7PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Is this soap opera of suffering a form of punishment for the protagonist couple's complicity in Japanese imperialism? Are people floating clouds, obscuring the sun? Was plum wine gargled by all and sundry? Is this one of the greatest films of the classical Japanese cinema? Probably, yes. [BAMPFA]
Thursday, July 17
We Bring the Story With Us, 1:30PM, Rotunda (Downtown). Craft love letters to the places we’ve come from and the places we now call home. From spoken word to unsent letters, from sharp protest to tender poems, every writer is welcome in this workshop with Maya Chinchilla. [humanitix]
Port Chicago Weekend, 3 pm, African American Museum and Library (Downtown). Discussion of the historic East Bay explosion and strike (“mutiny”) with panelists Rev. Diana McDaniel, Sandra Evers-Manly, Kelli English, and Antwanisha Williamson-Berlus. Oh, did you need a book or two that dig deep into this local history? [OPL]
Good Trouble Lives On! 3:30PM, Adams Street & MacArthur Boulevard (Adams Point). Banner Protest at 580 Hwy Overpass. Get honked at for democracy. [Indybay]
A Recipe For Food Sovereignty 4PM, North Branch of Berkeley Public Library (Berkeley). Join author of Chími Nu'am: Native California Foodways for the Contemporary Kitchen, Sara Calvosa Olson (Karuk), for a discussion of sustainable, culturally appropriate, and ecologically sound food systems. Sara’s muffins are made of acorns and taste like clouds. Outside, bring a blanket or chair, and leave your nut allergies at home. [BPL]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Viaje a la luna, 6PM Novack Gallery (Get on a bus from 16th St Station). Steve Dickison guest curates an evening of poetry with Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta and Lourdes Figueroa conceiving a collaborative performance working with Lorca's film-text Viaje a la luna, in original Spanish and in English translation. [wattis]
Tommy, 6:30PM, Orinda Theatre (The Hot Side of the Hills). Is Tommy a good movie? Well. It certainly is a Rock Opera. But this viewing is free, and that’s a lot of movie and “boy, that’s what the seventies were like, huh?” for free. [OrindaTheatre]
Charles Hood’s Sideways Look at the Pacific Ocean, 7PM, Clio’s (The Lake). Poet, naturalist, and award-winning essayist drives all the way up I-5 to launch Double Hyenas and Lazarus Birds: A Sideways Look at the Pacific Ocean and Everything in It where the Pacific mixes with big rivers here in the Bay. Hood and journalist Marissa Ortega-Welch will summon maritime ghosts and the saltiness of turtle tears. Poets get their hands on paragraphs and strange things happen. [thethirdplace]
Miranda S. Spivack’s Backroom Deals, 7pm, Mrs Dalloway’s (Berkeley). Veteran journalist Spivack will be in conversation about her book with Victoria Baranetsky about five “accidental activists,” people from across the United States who questioned why local and state governments didn’t protect them from issues facing their communities and the secret deals, lies, and corruption they uncover shake their faith in government but move them to action. [eventbrite]
It's Too Late, Do It Anyway! 7PM, Tamarack (Oakland). A Book about Being a Cultural Worker in the Apocalypse + a Hologram Starter Kit. This is not really a book; it’s a pathway out of the tough spot we are all in right now. [instagram]
Nostalghia 7 PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Tarkovsky made a movie about a Russian being homesick in Italy, based on his experience of same. One of his best movies, like all of them. No, it’s really spelled like that, like an obscure pasta made from a kind of wheat you can’t get here. [BAMPFA]
Also: Poolside Poets at the Phoenix Hotel (West Bay) / BANDALOOP Live & In-Process at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza (Downtown) / Long Haulers Film Showing at the Roxie (West Bay)
Friday, July 18
Black Spaces: Reclaim & Remain, 11 AM OMCA (The Lake). Opening of the new show developed in collaboration with East Bay residents affected by displacement, inviting reflection on the intersection of activism, memory, and the materiality of home through engagements with work contributed by an artist, an architect, and an archive. [OMCA]
OMCA Friday Nights, 5PM, OMCA (The Lake). You know what it is. This week, The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol & Her Sextet and Frisco Pinay rapper, singer, and musician Amihan, alongside her band Diwa, a collective of Bay Area artists and organizers. [OMCA]
Pine Needle Basketry Workshop, 5pm, Lake Temescal (Hayward Fault). If you could use a 3.5 hour focus session and a very small basket, show up and sit down. [instagram]
Harold and Maude with an all-you-can-eat pasta bar, 6PM, Parkway (Downtown). The famous tattoo scene was filmed at the old Emeryville mudflat sculptures, RIP. My best friend was a late-90s video store clerk and this being her favorite movie was probably what got her the job. She now lives in Florida (“the methy part”), because there was a lawyer job there defending strip clubs -- loving this movie probably also got her that job. [Parkway]
Poetry! 6:30 pm, Tamarack (Downtown). Elias Gonzalez, Elaine Kahn, Jane Gregory and Syd Westley read poetry at Tamarack, Oakland. Jane Gregory has a book titled My Enemies and Amanda Nadelberg is a fan, which are both strong points in her favor. Elaine is visiting from LA and her poems are trapdoors: “I want to be more / than anything I want.” Syd is moving away but before they leave, listen: “I’m / not describing pleasure / well enough. It shattered / me. I’m in pieces. / I’m on the floor” -- get there on time, there’s a party after! [Tamarack]
Long Haul Issue 2 Release Party, 8 pm, Tamarack (Downtown). ORB will be vibe reporting. Brief remarks from workers and comrades, copies of Issue 2 and drinks for sale, and a few additional words to share about what the magazine has coming down the line. Wear red and join a union. [instagram]
Saturday, July 19
“Coney Island of the West” walking tour 10AM, Alameda (The Island That Used to Be a Peninsular Extension of Oakland). Walk around and hear about a time when people wore those old fashioned swimsuits and no one had seen a smart phone. [$20 tickets]
Planting Justice Fruit Tasting, 10:30 AM, Mother Farm (El Sobrante). Love those peaches, wanna shake that tree. Consensually. [Planting Justice]
All Out Against ICE in Dublin, 11 AM, Don Biddle Park (Dublin). ICE likes to operate close to the jails they partner with, and the sludge creatures in charge of our country want to reopen the Dublin Jail as an ICE holding facility. NO. Join the Bay Area Tsuru protest, drawing on the legacy of Japanese American incarceration during WWII to resist its repetition today. [action network]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Light Jacket #21, 3 pm, Blue Heron Lake (Golden Gate Park). Ongoing reading series organized by Erick Sáenz and Amy Berkowitz. This month’s readers are bringing words to buoy us all. Giovanna Lomanto (Oakland), paul ebenkamp (Greater Oakland, hosts Woolsey House readings), Carrie Hunter (West Bay local), Blythe Sheldon (the internet). [instagram]
Guerrilla Hydrology, 4pm, Defremery Park (West Oakland). Explore the hidden infrastructure of urban water systems. After a classroom session on municipal waterworks, get outside and learn your creeks and culverts and fire hydrants. Do this puzzle for homework. [BAFS]
An American Girl Anthology, 6pm, Womb House Books (Temescal Alley). Samantha (child labor and class!) and Felicity (horses and revolution!) were obviously the best. All anachronistic play is still verboten, Caitlyn. [eventbrite]
Đồng Quể 2: A Việt Queer Showcase from Việt Nam to the Bay, 6 PM, Understory (Fruitvale). Once-in-a-lifetime showcase + dinner + fundraiser for immigration defense and rapid response community care. Celebrating Queer and Trans Việt community, culture, and art. [EveryAction]
Moths at Night, 8:30 pm, Tilden Nature Area (Berkeley). Soft fluffy things try to find each other by the light of the moon and we aim to get in on the action. [EBRPD]
Also: Djerassi Annual Open Studios (the only reason to go to the peninsula) / Gardening on the Greenway (Richmond) / Poetry in Chinatown at Clarion Performing Arts Center (West Bay) / Labor History Walking Tour with Long Haul Magazine (West Bay)
Sunday, July 20
I Was There Too, 1 pm, James Moore Theatre at OMCA (The Lake). Performance by Meres-Sia Gabriel, daughter of Black Panther leaders Emory Douglas and Gayle Dickson. Through personal family photos, archival footage, original poetry, and live jazz & blues, experience growing up in the heart of the Black Panther revolution. [OMCA]
Poetry Flash, 3 pm, 2727 California Street (Berkeley). A poetry reading featuring Rachel Richardson (Smother) and Mia Ayumi Malhotra (Mothersalt). Bring your children or flee from them -- either way, get to the poems. [Poetry Flash]
Radiograph of a Family, 3PM, New Parkway (Downtown). "'Mother married a photo of Father,' says director Firouzeh Khosrovani in the opening of this deeply personal documentary. She's not speaking metaphorically." [Parkway]
Do It Together x Queer Mythos, 3:30pm, Lake Merritt Amphitheatre (The Lake, obvi). Start with a low stakes art hang out. Then performance art takes over with Queer Mythos, an open style drag set. [instagram]
Monday, July 21
Community Reading of the New York War Crimes. 7PM, La Peña (Berkeley). Reading and discussing articles from issue 18, “Refuge,” the vast majority of which are by Palestinian writers on the ground. [instagram]
