Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, July 8 – July 13
Reading about mushrooms lately, and one solution to FOMO seems to be just go mycelial and collective so that where one ORB is, all ORBs are. That’s how I’ll be approaching Friday night. And Saturday. Also Thursday. Because starting Thursday night, the SF Art Book Fair blooms in the West Bay, featuring many Oakland artists and publishers, of course, and folks from out of town who got lost in the fog. Meanwhile in a thoroughly interdisciplinary turn, aerial arts and urban history are coming together all month long through Bandaloop’s Somewhere to Oakland, which turns downtown Oakland into cliffs that are dancefloors (I wonder what the insurance costs and if the city is paying? Do they know that poetry readings are also art and much less technical to set up?). Anybody want to do literary trivia with us next monday? -MS
Tuesday, July 8
Árabe: Performance & Songwriting Workshop with Amanda Ekery, 3 PM, 81st Avenue Branch (Woodland in East Oakland). Google’s stupid broken search tool asked, “Did you mean: arab bakery”? NO. Ekery’s project is so cool, exploring the history of El Paso and Juarez communities of Syrian/Lebanese immigrants through language and song. Research became liner notes that became lyrics and essays, becoming an art book that includes a vinyl record. In this event, participants will leave the workshop with a short song they have created, along with tools and tips to continue songwriting. [OPL]
Joanna Sokol’s A Real Emergency, 7 pm, Mrs Dalloway's (College Ave, Berkeley side). In conversation with Kevin Fagan, longtime paramedic Joanna Sokol provides an on-the-ground look at the experience of working in emergency medicine in Nevada, Santa Cruz, and the West Bay. I fainted from female troubles in high school and the school nurse (at least we had one!) called an ambulance, and my mother said, don't ever let them do that again – which is how I learned how much an ambulance ride costs. [eventbrite]
Wednesday, July 9
Knowing Your Rights in the Age of Monsters with Legal Solidarity Bay Area, 6pm-8pm Hasta Muerte (Fruitvale). State repression is escalating, know your rights and risks during encounters with law enforcement. This workshop fosters peer-to-peer legal support and education. [BAFS]
Stalker, 7 PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Andrei Tarkovsky ripping off Jeff Vandermeer. Rude. [BAMPFA]
Thursday, July 10
The Long-Lost Oakland walking tour with Liam O’Donoghue, 1:30 pm, The Jack London Oak (Downtown). Downtown right now is a headache of a Jerry Brown hangover. Learn what it has been, imagine what it could be (fill in 980). [humanitix]
Circus Bella at Lincoln Summer Nights, 5 pm, Lincoln Square Park (Chinatown). Community gathering with professional circus and clown performers at 6 pm. I accidentally went to a tween circus school recital recently: this circus will indubitably be better, plus it’s free and there’s superb noodles nearby. [Friends of Lincoln Square Park]
Reading and Listening to Árabe with Amanda Ekery, 6 pm, Bandung Books (San Antonio, East Oakland). Like I already said, Árabe is an ongoing research project focusing on Syrian immigration to El Paso/Juarez in which Ekery draws on her own family history and the influence these mixed cultures have on film, food, economy, and music. If you love tacos el pastor, you already are in the mix of rich Arab/Mexican collaboration. [Eastside Arts Alliance]
[West Bay Bonus Event] “Notes from the Edge” Launch Party & Fundraiser, 6 pm, KALW future HQ (Warfield Commons on Market St). Join local journalist and author Jeff Chang for an exclusive listening preview of his new KALW podcast, “Notes from the Edge.” (In conversation with Cecilia Lei, Coyote Media Collective reporter and producer). Taking his love for music and writing and making a podcast named after his Substack, as one does these days. Bring cash or a check or your favorite cash app but the point is, journalism needs your money to survive, so throw in. [eventbrite]
POETRY!, 7 pm, Bathers Library (Telegraph). Readings by Matt Longabucco (Brooklyn, but we forgive him) and Diane Ward (throw flowers, give homage), hosted by the incomparable Jacob Kahn (stalwart East Bay poetry pal). Bathe yourself in poems! [instagram]
Hideko the Bus Conductor, BAMPFA (Berkeley). I mean, “a charming escapist comedy in which the Second Sino-Japanese War is, if anything, conspicuous by its absence,” isn’t that a vibe. Looks worse here. [BAMPFA]
Friday, July 11
Whole Foods Takedown, 11 am, Whole Foods on Gilman/10th (Berkeley). Signs, bring your own, big ones are good, drums and noise are great. "Tesla Takedown has made Elon Musk pay a price for supporting fascism. We want to make Bezos pay too." [mobilize]
Árabe: Songwriting Workshop, 3 PM Piedmont Avenue Branch (Piedmont Ave, in Oakland because Piedmont doesn’t pay for their own library, just cops). AGAIN: Maybe you were busy Tuesday AND Thursday, so the library is giving you one last shot at writing with and learning from Amanda Ekery. Get mycelial and send a friend if you can’t make it. [OPL]
Street Stories: Oakland in Focus, 5 pm, 464 9th St (Old Town Oakland). Group photography exhibition opening featuring the work of 39 photographers. Curated by Essi Westerman and Pablo Circa. Only guideline: the image submitted had to be made in Oakland. Many eyes make a place. [instagram]
Tritone Poetry, 6:30 pm, Tamarack (Downtown). Elizabeth Estrada, Fede KG, Rae Rad, Zêdan Xelef, & drag by Misterrr. Show up, get read to/at/though/by. [Tamarack]
Exploring Watershed History & Reflections on Lake Merritt film preview, 6:30 pm, a private residence (near Lake Merritt). You already know about Courtland Creek. The next watershed up for your consideration is the one that beats the heart of Oakland: Liam O’Donoghue, Andrew Alden, Katie Noonan, Jennifer Stern, and Christina McGhee-Esquivel will talk about the former slough and all the creeks that make our hills curve and slide. Creeks are seeping, seeping, always creeping. Online and in person. [eventbrite]
Les Blancs (The Whites) by Lorraine Hansberry, 7 pm, Oakland Theatre Project (Uptown). One of the great works of Black Arts, Hansberry's final play, maybe her greatest. She saw Jean Genet's Les Nègres, was furious about it, and then worked on this, her only play set in Africa, until she died. Elon Musk doesn’t want you to see this. [OTP]
Miss Julie, 7 pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Swedish S&M, but Strindbergian and in high necked gowns, so extra classy. [BAMPFA]
Also: Intersectional Reading Room with Jupiter at Tamarack (Downtown) / Raye Zaragoza does OMCA Friday Night (Oakland) / Sonic Artifact at Eternal Now (San Pablo-land)
Saturday, July 12
Richmond birdwatch! 10AM, Greenway Community Gardens (Richmond). Get to know whose fluffy belly, flicking tail, and sharp-edged wings you’re seeing as you walk through the lovely Richmond Greenway. Richmond is Oakland, too. [urbantilth]
Reading with author Natasha Tripplett, 11 AM, Claremont Branch (Berkeley). Hear the author read her picture book, Planted with Love: Growing Into a Family. Talk about growing up in foster care, building trust and love, and growing a garden. [BPL]
Tesla Takedown, noonish, on fucking fourth street (Fourth Street). They're still there.
Árabe Mahrajan Tour, 1 pm, Sumud: Resistance Until Liberation Mural (Uptown). STILL AGAIN: Hear the music and stories ofAmanda Ekery’s Árabe at the Sumud Mural. Mahrajans are part of Syrian homeland culture, basically block parties. We know how to do that. [instagram]
The Gate of Memory Reading, 2 pm, J-SEI (Emeryville). Celebrate the anthology edited by Brandon Shimoda and Brynn Saito gathering work from sixty-six poets descended from Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII. Hosted by Brandon Shimoda with readings by contributors and community members: Brian Komei Dempster, Lauren Fujimoto-Johnson, Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson, Steve Fujimura, Rebecca A. Green, Jodi Hottel, Lauren Emiko Ito, Susan Kiyo Ito, Amanda Mei Kim, Casey Hidekawa Lane/Levinski, Ali Meyers-Ohki, Ryan Hitoshi Nakano, Miya Sommers, Dana Swensen, Syd Westley, and Doug Yamamoto. [Zeffy]
Talk with Jon Hickey, author of Big Chief, 2 pm, North Berkeley Branch (Berkeley). Tribal politics, estranged siblings, struggles for control over a casino. Anishinaabe rez politics bringing high drama to the sweetgrass and wild rice. [BPL]
Roundtable Reading of Willodeen, 2:30 PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Young readers read aloud to one another – this time from Willodeen by Katherine Applegate (age 7+ recommended). Sounds perfect for kids who love magical beasts (so, all of them?). Free book and monster to all (children) who show up (the monster is invisible). [BAMPFA]
Lightning, 4:30 pm, BAMPFA (North North Oakland) Another Japanese movie about a bus conductor. This is such a common narrative theme it’s giving me a lot more context for the best book in the Taro Gomi canon, Bus Stops. [BAMPFA]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Our commons are free, 5pm, SF Art Book Fair (West Bay). Ben Kinmont talks about his current art project, exploring the printing history of the West Bay Diggers. If you get there early, find Kinmont operating his press around SFABF. If you miss it entirely, check out the exhibition at Fort Mason. [SFABF25]
The Magnolia Ballet, 8 pm, Shotgun Players (Ashby). Previews start this weekend, ahead of opening night on July 19. A tale of four men: a son, a lover, an ancestor, and a father. They dance in the sticky heat of a rural, Southern Gothic landscape fraught with secrets and possibilities. With expansive poetry and whispered prose, this piece births resilience underneath the bloom of fresh magnolias. [Shotgun Players]
Also (ALSO!!): Rocky Horror with Queerly Drinking at Tessier Winery (Berkeley) / Spaghetti at Piedmont Piano Company (Oakland) / Bushwick Book Club Presents: Not the Path of Totality by Gabby La La, 2 pm, Peralta Hacienda (Peralta Creek Watershed) / Writers with Drinks hosted by Charlie Jane Andrews at Strut (West Bay) / Writing with the Plants at Gill Tract Farm with Bay Area Free School (Albany) / Decolonization in Theory and Practice at Tamarack (Downtown) / Trans poetics reading with Precarious Mag at Adobe Books (The Mission) / Read It & Leaf Book, Story, and Plant Swap (Golden Gate Park) / Tule Boat Workshop with Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino at the Lawrence Hall of Science (Berkeley Hills) / Dinner with author Alka Joshi fundraiser for Litquake (West Bay) / Radiation, Fraud & the Hunters Point Shipyard (Hunters Point)
Sunday, July 13
Images, 7pm, BAMPFA (Bezerkley). Movie people really are into the ones made in the ‘70s and Robert Altman made a lot of movies in the ‘70s, including this one. In a sense, all his movies were made in the '70s? The math maths out that this one is probably good, even if the description (fantasy novelist loses her shit on vacation?) makes me skeptical that it includes plot to any noticeable degree. Then again. [BAMPFA]
The Lost Boys, 9 PM, the New Parkway (Downtown). Kiefer Sutherland is a vampire in 1987 Santa Cruz, both ‘80s Coreys star, Dianne Wiest can support a family as a video store clerk, and other fanciful turns of events! [New Parkway]
Also: Stay home and recover.
