Art

Lights, camera, SWAT team: NBC films Trauma in downtown Oakland

A showdown at Bayside Mutual Bank blocked traffic Tuesday, while police worked to diffuse a bank robbery gone bad. Police cars piled up and FBI agents swarmed the intersection of 21st and Broadway in downtown Oakland. SWAT teams swiftly moved into position. A rooftop sniper carefully took aim. And then: Reuben “Rabbit” Palchuck arrived on the scene.

The Crucible’s opening art showing: “eARTth”

On Friday night, more than 50 people crammed into the small narrow studio of the Crucible’s new art studio, the Cathedral Gallery, on Broadway in downtown Oakland. The show, which runs until Dec. 18, displays art ranging from a beautiful clay sculpted statue of a woman to brightly colored neck ties made of glass. The title: eARTh (with an emphasis on art). The art: made from glass, clay, marble, stone and plaster. The price: $50 to $3,000.  Or am I…

Thelonious Monk: a life rediscovered

At the Eastside Arts Alliance, historian Robin D. G. Kelley speaks about his new book examining the life of pianist Thelonious Monk, and upends the myth of Monk as a reclusive jazz genius.

Art, live from Death Row

At 23rd and Telegraph, inside a storefront/gallery/craft space called Rock Paper Scissors, neatly hung canvas paintings and framed ink drawings lined the walls. Cards below each piece identified the artist: all are prisoners at San Quentin.

Laney student performance calls for better public education

Oral histories of Oakland residents collected by Laney College students are woven together in the original production, “The Miseducation of Oakland.” Director Michael Torres says that the overall message of the show is that, “everyone should get an education and nobody has the right to take away education.”

Green Day’s rock opera hits home

Midway through the rock opera “American Idiot,” the main character Johnny, his rebel girlfriend Whatsername, and an ensemble of urban youth belt out their message of isolation in the city: “My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me, my shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating, sometimes I wish someone out there will find me, till then I walk alone.” The song, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” was written by Oakland-based Green Day, a band that’s succeeded on a global…

Popcorn, manga swag, and the goop-filled orb: it’s Ninja Night in Rockridge

They wear plaid laceless sneakers and tattered jeans scrawled with indelible pen. They are self-proclaimed “high school rejects.” They are no older than 19, but they can absolutely school you on many aspects of contemporary Japanese popular culture—particularly as expressed in the comic book and video phenomena called manga and anime.

This week’s Game On: The Rockridge Ninjas. by Richard Parks/Oakland North