Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, September 23 - 28
This calendar has been written to the background rhythms of Anne Waldman and Ted Berrigan’s Memorial Day, which starts out slow and then just keeps going (the calendar, and also the incantatory litany of the poem). I promise to try to be more selective in future but man, take a look at the breadth of options we’ve got in mostly just Oakland and Greater Oakland this week for all of us who like to do bookish things in public (I went to the SPT Jack Spicer letters launch then the Mary Roach party back to back last Friday night and recommend a stack of book events to end your week, it’s tasty). From political discussions to multiple open mics to bike fix-it clinics at the library to literary fundraisers and Spanish language children’s theatre on the trails: leave the house, but not leave town. Maybe go out into the Bay itself and visit Mare Island where there’s a Retro Roadshow of vintage technology Friday and Saturday because tech goes obsolete except for the book, that’s the most durable information delivery system we’ve got. Get your fingers dirty with ink and print a poetry broadside with CODEX to prove it. If you decide you like time travel, head back into Bay Area history this weekend through a dome projection of The Philosophy of Alan Watts (psychedelics and the woo are like mushrooms bursting forth, the drought is over...). And yes, over in the West Bay, it's time for the Folsom Street Fair on Sunday, where you’ll find all of Oakland’s leather lovers and maybe the polyamory tabling guy (please ask him to reach out, we have questions, mostly about logistics). I think my favorite event might be the very last one on the calendar, at the tail end of Sunday’s also: artist as guest archivist inside a family home, please bring your own frame? I love Oakland.
If this snapshot isn’t enough for you, check out Coyote’s (awooooo!) broader calendar, or maybe you’re hungry – Slow Food East Bay’s calendar has all kinds of food and pop up and farm-focused event listings. And Bather’s Library is accepting submissions of events and mini essays through Weds for their next print calendar! We exist amidst bounty, enjoy it.
Does Monday exist? Signs point to no, but Clio’s runs the week their own way. -MS and ORB
Tuesday, September 23
Microfactory & Studio Tour w/ Unspun, 12 pm, 6655 Hollis St (Emeryville). Interested in Bay Area manufacturing? Come for an inside look with TwoTwo at Unspun, a textile studio, microfactory, and custom denim label based in Oakland/Emeryville with a mission to reduce global carbon emissions. Emeryville likes itself some light industry. [twotwo]
Why Are These Summer Books Indebted to an Austrian Author of Nihilistic Rants?, 5 p.m., Dwinelle (Cal). Juliane Werner on Thomas Bernhard. Repetition, hyperbole, and darkly comic nihilism ... the ancestor of global lit fic we’ve never noticed is this Austrian guy who was a Nestbeschmutzer (nest besmircher, ie, shat on his homeland, which deserved it, in what’s essentially autofiction). [UCB]
The Lemurian Candidate, 7pm, Grand Lake Theater (The Lake). This indie movie about taking drugs on Mt Shasta, aliens, and friendship, is getting a one-night-only Grand Lake Theater premiere, with the filmmakers themselves. [GLT]
Death to Spotify Forum, 7pm, Bathers Library (Telegraph). This series launch is sold out, but there will be a few tickets held for walk-ins at the door. Go test that firecode, squeeze in. [instagram]
Wednesday, September 24
East Bay Insiders Morning Buzz Q&A Podcast, 9 a.m., Prescott Market (West Oakland). Steve Tavares interviews Oakland City Council President Kevin Jenkins. [instagram]
The Everyday Walls of American Life, 3:30pm, 575 McCone Hall (Cal). A talk from Anand Pandian’s new book Something Between Us on how “empathy is often thwarted by the infrastructure of everyday American life: fortified homes and neighborhoods, bulked-up cars and trucks, visions of the body as an armored fortress, and media that shut out contrary views.” [UCB]
California Spotlight: Tech Authoritarianism, 4 p.m. 820 Social Sciences Building (Cal). Local always connects to the global, especially when the epicenter is in the Bay. Tech authoritarianism’s emergence from and implications within California are under discussion today. Certain technological advancements and their proponents are reshaping societal structures, potentially (“potentially”!) undermining democratic frameworks. The panel will feature a geographer, so that’s a good sign. [UCB]
Standing Above the Clouds: Art, Resilience, and Resistance Workshop with Pua Case, 5pm, Location upon RSVP (Cal). A workshop and discussion of women’s intergenerational solidarity as expressed in the art, resilience, and resistance of the Mauna Kea Movement. [UCB]
Conversation on California’s Landscape, 6pm, Book Society (College Ave). John King and Obi Kaufmann are really cool writers, and their books are good books, but is this event “$40 for ‘wine (or non-alcoholic beverage) and lite bites celebrating the rich bounty of California’” good? [Booksociety]
Tampopo, 6:30pm, New Parkway (Uptown). Eater called it “the Ultimate Cult Classic Food Film.” r/movies called it "A good movie about Ramen." Introduced by Eric Hyman (buyer for San Francisco’s Waterbar). New Parkway will provide kosho pepper and ramen seasoning to flavor whatever you’re eating (but if you want to erotically pour it on your lover’s stomach--or pass it mouth to mouth--perhaps wait until you’re home. [NewParkway]
Meditations on Motherhood, 6:30pm, Womb House Books (Temescal). Carissa Potter and Ruthie Ackerman are creatives and moms who are taking deep breaths (breathing helps, but mind-altering substances and babysitters are both wildly underestimated as problem solvers). [eventbrite]
Sultry Sessions! 6:30pm, Zanzi Oakland (Uptown). Sweat with the kind of poems and stories that work the whole body, ORB approved and endorsed. [insta]
One Battle After Another, 7pm, Grand Lake Theatre (The Lake). Special debut screening -- Paul Thomas Anderson made a movie that draws on Pynchon’s NorCal novel Vineland but avoids paying for the rights. The only movies of Anderson’s I’ve ever seen are the Haim music videos, though it’s rumored he’s made others. [tickets]
Zohran! 7pm, Clio’s (The Lake). What can the Bay Area learn from the Mamdani phenomenon? Why have progressives in the Bay Area not fared as well? Etc. Discussion with local people who think about politics a lot, namely Sam Heft-Luthy, Kathryn Lybarger, and Keally McBride. [eventbrite]
Lyrics & Dirges, 7pm, Pegasus Books Downtown (Berkeley). Open Mic featuring Oakland poet Cyrus Armajani who teaches reading and creative writing to youth who are incarcerated. His poems have been published widely. Sign up, live your dream of poeting at Pegasus [Pegasus]
You, the Living, 7:00pm, BAMPFA (Cal). Depressed Swede makes existentialist tableaux. Roy Andersson is not the same as Paul Thomas Anderson, yet my familiarity with their work is similar in its total absence. [BAMPFA]
Also: Lotería Day at Martin Luther King Jr. Branch OPL (Deep East) / Wordnight – USF Creative Writing at Booksmith (West Bay) / Film screening: Mary Helena Clark, Peng Zuqiang, and Ana Vaz at The Wattis (West Bay) / Studying The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Strategy at Tamarack Library (Downtown) / Fix Your Bike at MLK Jr Branch OPL (Deep East) / 16mm Notebooks and Diaries at BAMPFA (Berkeley) / Hans Kundnani on Whiteness and the European Project at Cal (Berkeley)
Thursday, September 25
Repulsive Reads, 5 pm, North Branch BPL (Berkeley). Discussion of Aura by Carlos Fuentes. There’s sex AND religion in it. Wandering around recent internet rabbit holes alerted me to the drrrrama around Carlos Fuentes that still reverberates in discussions of who is and who isn’t a Mexican Novelist today. Go, gossip about it all. [BPL]
Thinking Like a Multiverse: Psychedelic Pathways to a Diverse World, 5 pm, Geballe Room, Stephens Hall (Cal). Ramzi and Ramsey talk about why drugs are great for English professors and everyone else (moms, after you try meditating, maybe mushrooms?). [UCB]
Standing Above the Clouds, Film Screening and Q&A, 5:30 pm, RSVP for room location (Cal). Through the lens of mothers and daughters in three Native Hawaiian families, this documentary explores intergenerational healing and the impacts of safeguarding cultural traditions. Q+A featuring Mauna Kea activist Pua Case and filmmaker Jalena Keane-Lee. [UCB]
Nepantla, 6 pm, Understory (Fruitvale). A bi-weekly exploratory writing workshop by and for QTBIPOC creatives, with a themed discussion and dedicated writing time. Hosted by Esperanza. [insta]
[West Bay Bonus Event One] The Poet and the Silk Girl, 6 pm, Mechanics Institute (get off at Montgomery). Author Satsuki Ina and NPR's Here and Now host Deepa Fernandes in conversation about the generational struggle of Japanese Americans who resisted racist oppression, fought for the restoration of their rights, and clung to their full humanity in the face of adversity. A therapist and human rights activist, Ina connects her family’s internment to modern-day mass incarceration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Crushing Wheelchairs Trailer Screening, 6 pm, East Side Arts Alliance (Deep East). Watch the preview of a powerful new movie being created by the POOR Magazine community of houseless/formerly houseless artists, cultural workers, poets and survivors, telling the stories of the people being disappeared from their communities. Panel conversation to follow, along with books for sale. [instagram]
Elizabeth George's A Slowly Dying Cause, 7 pm, Mrs Dalloway’s (College Ave). With Cara Black in conversation. They’ve each written twenty one books -- that is FORTY TWO BOOKS in total. [eventbrite]
[West Bay Bonus Event Two] Luigi The Musical, 7:30pm, The Independent (Divididero). FINAL SHOW. Someone forward this to Jessica Ferri, if she’s not already an ORB subscriber -- she’ll want to know. [Luigi The Musical]
Zahradnikuv Rok (The Gardener's Year), 7:30pm, Orinda Theatre (The Hot Side of the Hills). Somehow both based on a true story and a Karel Čapek novel (the author who invented the word robot and wrote a classic sci fi novel about newts -- can we get a movie adaptation of that next?). [Orinda Movies]
Also: Triptych Palestine at Medicine For Nightmares (West Bay) / “To Bright Disturbances” Opening at SFAC (West Bay)
Friday, September 26
Translating Japanese American Incarceration Camp Literature, 4 pm, Institute of East Asian Studies (Cal). A symposium of Japan-based and US-based scholars to discuss scholarly and community-based work on Japanese-language literature written during the WWII internment of Japanese Americans. Learn about the little lit mags produced at Tule Lake and elsewhere. [UCB]
Neko Case Listening Party, 5 PM, 1-2-3-4 Go! Records (North Oakland). Neko Case rocks a mic and also gives good newsletter. Celebrate the release of her new record NEON GREY MIDNIGHT GREEN with fellow lovers of a redhead who arias with her whole heart. [1234 Go Records]
Poetry! 6:30pm, Tamarack (Downtown). Syd Staiti -- a poet and film programmer living in South Berkeley (“I only want you to want me. Don’t love me. OK? It would be a disaster.”); Connie Mae Oliver whose book of poems dormilona just came out from burrow press (“I drive from Gilroy into the sun which is a place”), and Jason Morris (lives in the West Bay, chapbook from Ugly Duckling). We hear the mic is good to go! Starts on time, don’t be late. [Tamarack]
Stranger Inside. 7PM, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Local legend and dyke filmmaking auteur Cheryl Dunye presents her rarely-seen lesbian prison drama from 2001. It’s part of a series Dunye has curated for BAMPFA, which features some of her early work alongside films she admires. In true for-the-community fashion, the screening is free. Make sure to show up by 6 PM to snag tickets. [BAMPFA]
Also: Opening Reception for O V E R / E X P O S E D at ARTogether (Downtown) / Abolitionist Art Opening & Film Screening at Planting Justice (El Sobrante)
Saturday, September 27
City of Berkeley Free Compost Giveaway, 6:30am, 201 University Ave (Berkeley). Last day of the year for free compost. The pick-up lasts until the compost is gone, and you must tarp your loads. BYO, shovels, containers, and safety gear (and tarps). If you miss out, check the stables.
Wildcat Creek Clean-Up, 9AM til when you get tired, Wildcat Creek (North Richmond).
Meet at Lucky A’s Ball field and expect to get a little dirty, bring water, sun protection, and appropriate clothes and footwear. [watershedproject]
Who Built the Sibley Labyrinth? 10:30 AM, Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve Main Staging Area (The Hills). Join Helena Mazzariello, the original builder (ok, there’s the mystery solved), as she unravels mysteries and myths about labyrinths and reveals how she secretly created ours in 1989. A naturalist will discuss the natural and land-use history of the area. Hike 3 miles, bring lots of water, gets hot there. [EBRPD]
Friends of The Oakland Public Library 75th Anniversary, 12PM, Bookmark Bookstore (Oldtown). Free snacks, arts & crafts, a recitation by the Oakland Youth Poet Laureate, and great deals on used books. All proceeds support OPL programs, including those star-powered events featured in our calendar! [FOPL]
California Writers Club, 12:30 PM, Rockridge Branch OPL (Rockridge). Join a group of writers that’s been meeting a long time to offer support, feedback, and fellowship. All afternoon long. [OPL]
Exile Shanghai, 1pm BAMPFA (Berkeley). A German film that "conjures up the lost Jewish world of Shanghai in the dark days of the 1930s" OK, you have my attention. But what if I told you that it’s 24 minutes longer than The Sorrow and the Pity? [BAMPFA]
No Name Book Club, 1 pm, 81st Ave Branch OPL (Deep East). Book under discussion this month: Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde. Discuss the fifteen iconic essays and speeches therein with this book club celebrating Black writers. [OPL]
Stitching Words, Memory, Community, 2 p.m., BAMPFA (Berkeley). How do we stitch together the story of a region? How do we map everyday practices within a larger genealogy of collective struggle and resistance? Oakland poet and scholar Wendy M. Thompson and artist Trina Michelle Robinson discuss threads of fiber, threads of language, threads of memory. Thompson reads from her (VERY good) book of poetry Black California Gold. Audience participants are welcome to bring a personal story, photograph, cutout, small memento, or piece of art to share as part of this collaborative experience. [UCB]
[North Bay Bonus Event] Feminist Futurism Versus Project 2025: An Empowering Speculative Salon, 2pm, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art (San Rafael). Featuring acclaimed authors Tamika Thompson, Faith Adiele, Angela Dalton, and Charlie Jane Anders with moderator Isis Asare of Sistah SciFi. How can feminist futurism resist authoritarian narratives and instead write toward liberation? [eventbrite]
The Best Man: Unfinished Business author talk with Malcolm D. Lee, 4 pm, North Branch BPL (Berkeley). Join Marcus Books for a discussion and Q&A surrounding Malcolm D. Lee's The Best Man: Unfinished Business. Lee is a writer, director, producer and now novelist. In the new book, the beloved characters from The Best Man franchise reunite. [BPL]
Uncanny Cabaret II, 5 pm, Shapeshifters Cinema (Jack London Square). A special multi-media variety show and fundraiser for Driveway Follies, the long-running and beloved Oakland Halloween puppet show tradition.This family-friendly event will include live puppet and expanded film performances + recent and historic Halloween-adjacent films with live music accompaniment. [Shapeshifters]
Uncivil Disobedience: Art Against Empire, 6pm, Understory (Fruitvale). A multimedia performance featuring poetry readings (Adam Ahmed and Christine Huang), dance and musical performances, and a communal reflection + conversation. All donations benefit the Sameer Project and other mutual aid efforts in Gaza. [Luma]
The Poetry Party, 7 pm, Akoma (Uptown). Frank (Bakari) H. Clark III hosts “an interactive experience that simultaneously exposes participants to poetry all while enjoying the ambiance of the party.” At a special kind of church where you can buy mushrooms -- just like an English professor. [Eventbrite]
The Fall of Otrar, 7 pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). The intrigue and turmoil preceding Genghis Khan’s systematic destruction of the lost East Asian civilization of Otrar. If this is not the first film you’ve ever seen from Kazakhstan, congratulations. [BAMPFA]
Also: Closing of Teaching Practice at 120710 (West Berkeley) / Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program at West Branch BPL (West Berkeley) / Community Workday at Castlemont Farm (Deep East) / Dashain and Deepawali Celebration at CERI (The Lake) / Cafecito in Nature, con Los Búhos y La Luna LLena at Tilden (Berkeley Hills) / To Hear a Shadow Launch and Conversation at Slash (West Bay) / SALT N WATER at Good Hot (North Northest Oakland at the Bay) / Autumn Equinox Celebration with Feed Black Futures at West Oakland Farm Park (West Oakland)
Sunday, September 28
Bay Nature Hike: Mount Diablo Butterflies, 11 AM, Mount Diablo's Mitchell Canyon (CoCoCo). Join lepidopterist and illustrator Liam O'Brien for a gentle hike in search of butterflies along a route featured in Liam's brand new book out next week Butterflies of the Bay Area and (Slightly) Beyond. Walkers will pause to eat lunch then keep going, trying to see all 30 species of butterfly that live in the region. [Bay Nature]
The Ocean is for Kids, 11am, Mrs Dalloways (College Ave). Signing and meat-and-greet with Julie Johnston, author of kids book If You Lived In The Sea, Who Would You Be? I’d be an anemone, all tentacled and sedentary and washed lovingly by the tide. [Mrs Dalloways]
[Bonus West Bay Event] Litquake Small Press Book Fair and Litquake Out Loud , 11 AM, Yerba Buena Gardens (West Bay). Come check out the new books from the Bay Area’s independent presses – from Recenter and Heyday and City Lights and all our local friends! The Litquake Out Loud reading series highlights the Bay Area’s BIPOC & LGBTQ+ writers and is curated by Giovanna Lomanto, Sarah O’Neal, Diego Plascencia-Vega, and (one of my faves) D’mani Thomas. [Litquake]
Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed: A fundraiser for Aunt Lute Books, 1 pm, The Greenlining Institute (Downtown). Celebrating the literary legacy of Gloria Anzaldúa and the visionary leadership of Joan Pinkvoss. Readings by Jewelle Gomez and Aida Hurtado. For 40 years, Aunt Lute Books has centered literature by women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and people of color. Help keep their mission going! [eventbrite]
Soulflow Sunday, 2 pm, couchdate (Downtown). I guess they’re still in the space for now? An a cappella open mic that’s not about performing; it’s about being heard, being felt, and letting your truth move the room. Black writers, poets, and thinkers invited to release whatever is on their hearts -- theme, unsurprisingly, is Open Hearts. [eventbrite]
Art Build for NO KINGS Oakland, 3pm, Cordonices Park (North Berkeley). No Kings art build for the upcoming Oakland March. Project includes paper crafts, lots of cutting, taping, painting, stamping, button making and more. Work is mostly sitting, bring your favorite paper scissors, you will be using them a lot. Tasks are repetitive and done by assembly line. We make community when we make things together. [Mobilize]
COYOTE Media Collective Launch Party, 6:30 pm, Mad Oak (Lake-ish). Local media outlet launches with good reporting, funny writing, and an excellent calendar. Toast the hardworking cooperative cofounders! They’ve had SO many meetings, buy them some beers. [Luma]
Gravitational Lensing, Program 11 - Relative Positions | Unmapping Lineages 7pm, Shapeshifters Cinema (Jack London-ish). This is a film thing? “By deconstructing ties to family, culture and geographical origins, the films in this program create new navigational charts—triangulating between points known and points unknown—to find paths that lead toward the discovery of the self.” [Shapeshifters]
Also: East Side Sushi screening at 81st Ave Branch OPL (Fruitvale) / Playdate for Palestine at Jerusalem Coffee House (Temescal) / Bay Area tea friends at Blue Willow (San Pablo Corridor) / Leymusoom Open Studio at Camp Magique (Clinton).
