News & Opinion
Alice Waters’ ‘We Are What We Eat’
A revelatory read from a restaurant revolutionary It’s likely that many people will never dine under the hallowed recycled redwood ceiling of Berkeley’s revered Chez Panisse. Opened in 1971 by restaurateur, chef and food activist Alice Waters, the establishment’s upscale reputation and long waiting list for reservations is preventative for all but economically advantaged or determinedly patient diners. Practicing for 50 years “slow food movement” concepts—more on that later—the restaurant is heralded as the birthplace of California cuisine, or at least its kind-hearted, earnest, flea market decorated, food fetishizing, revolutionary MC. Created with fly-by-the-seat-of-your-soil 1960s-style radicalism, the Chez Panisse menu has long emphasized simple presentations, the meal as a multi-senso...
Best of East Bay: Arts & Culture
Best Art Gallery Round Weather Best Ballet School Shawl Anderson Best Cover Band Tainted Love Best Dance Instructor Momo LeBeau Best Indy Filmmaker Boots Riley Best Local Band BAUS Best Media Personality: TV, Radio, Print Michael Krasny Best Movie Theater Grand Lake Theater Best Museum Oakland Museum Best Music Venue The Fox Best Outdoor Art Event First Friday Best Outdoor Music Venue Greek Theater Best Performing Arts Center Lesher Center Best Performing Dance Company Oakland Ballet Company Best Place to Dance Ashkenaz Best Record ⁄ CD Store Amoeba Best Virtual Ballet Company San Francisco Ballet Bes...
Mural, Mural on the Wall: A self-guided tour of Oakland’s murals
The whole city of Oakland is a canvas. Over 1,000 murals can be found throughout the city, covering once-empty walls in explosions of color. Street art is inherently radical, and many of Oakland’s murals deal with themes of protest, injustice and identity. Like the city itself, Oakland’s murals are bright, bold and unapologetic. By nature, street art changes all the time, but there are enough murals in Oakland to satisfy any urban explorer. Although street art can be found anywhere in Oakland, certain neighborhoods have more murals than others. Here is a self-guided tour to three of Oakland’s best mural neighborhoods—a full map of all the murals in the city is available at VisitOakland.com under “Mural Map.” San Pablo and Golden Gate San Pablo Avenue, which runs the length of B...
East Bay Tramp: Charlie Chaplin took over Niles and then the world
In 1869 Niles was a sleepy agricultural town situated some 20 miles south of Oakland and 20 miles north of San Jose, almost in the shadow of Mission Peak. Then the train arrived, and Niles became one of the last links in the transcontinental railroad connecting the East and the West coasts. Surveyors had concluded that picturesque Niles Canyon offered the best route through the East Bay Hills and into the San Francisco Bay Area, so it was through there that the first Central Pacific railroad rolled into the Bay Area on Sept. 6, 1869. Some 43 years later, in 1912, Gilbert “Bronco Billy” Anderson, cowboy star and director, decamped the train into Niles, the junction point linking Oakland, Stockton and Sacramento. Anderson liked what he saw—the rushing stream and steep ravines of Niles Canyon...
The Story of Plastic: The evolution of an eco pirate on capitalism’s amoral seas
Activist and filmmaker Stiv Wilson isn’t fighting to end plastic pollution. He’s fighting to end a system dependent on plastic. Can decades of work and a noteworthy cache of film awards make a drop of difference in an ocean of disposable everything? A Ticket to the Show. If you’ve ever been to the sagging Skates on the Bay restaurant in Berkeley, you know it’s a writer’s dream of a watering hole: A classic cocktail joint (of types both liquid and crustacean) on the waterfront, where the prices are Chicago-steakhouse comical, the service is more nostalgic than competent and the hipsters are in mercifully short supply. A few pebble skips away is the Berkeley Yacht Club and its members-only honor bar, reliably populated with colorful old salts downing rum drinks long after the barkeep ...
The Oakland in Me
Harris got into politics at a young age and at 13 she and her sister staged a protest regarding children being allowed to play on the lawn.
Joel Bernstein sees the light
Acclaimed rock ’n’ roll photographer and longtime Rockridge resident Joel Bernstein was still a teen when he asked Neil Young if he could play with Young’s new mother-of-pearl-inlaid Martin D-45 backstage. After a few minutes, when Young was called to go onstage, Bernstein quickly tuned the instrument and handed it back. Three years later, Young remembered the perfect tuning and asked Bernstein to be his guitar tech. Bernstein continued carrying his camera as he toured with Young, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Prince, documenting both iconic moments and quiet, reflective ones from a vantage most fans never see. Bernstein also captured images from the biggest stadium tour since the Beatles—Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s 1974 sweep—which became a blueprint for the 1970s model th...
Denial
Photo by Cottonbro. SICK OF IT Does she or doesn’t she … have the coronavirus? A ‘Presumed Positive’ Story By Katherine Butler Day One: It’s allergies. You wake up and stare at the bright morning sun. Are you awake? Have you slipped through the multiverse into an alternate time frame with a pandemic and a living sock monster as president? It’s hard to tell, because your head feels like it’s been filled with balloons and rainwater. Your six-year-old calls out to ask if he can watch Pokémon before homeschooling, even though this will cause him to behave like he’s been on a bender with an English punk rock band from the 1980s. You say, “Yes” and sit up. You’re an underwater sea creature who has flopped onto the beach, and now you’re going to dry out in the sand for a bit. Shit, your allergies...