Community
Oakland kicked off 2011’s Earth Day festivities yesterday with its annual Earth Expo in downtown Frank Ogawa Plaza. For the seventeenth year in a row, exhibitors lined the plaza’s aisles, offering visitors a glimpse of new green technologies and innovative products, and the latest information on local options for sustainable food, energy, and businesses. “Last year it was the 40th anniversary of Earth Day,” said Earth Expo organizer Bryn Samuel, who works for the City of Oakland as an Environmental…
Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes and the Wicked Witch of the West find themselves transported to a mysterious cave studded with stalactites and stalagmites. Quixote is convinced he is inside the mouth of a dragon he’s battled through Pamplona and Paris, and the Wicked Witch is his beloved Dulcenea. But Holmes argues convincingly that the stalactites and stalagmites are not the teeth of a dragon and the Witch melts away, a victim of water dripping from the cave’s ceiling. This is…
There will be no budget-based layoffs of elementary school teachers in Oakland next fall, Deputy Superintendent Maria Santos announced at Wednesday night’s school board meeting. About 230 teachers had received lay-off warning notices in March.
Oakland residents Kim Di Giacomo and Michele Senitzer co-founded Found Fruit as a way of connecting with other neighborhoods who have produce and foraging skills to share. Flowering trees will soon start to produce fruit such as plums, peaches, nectarines and apricots and will ripen starting in June. Foundfruit.com lists where to find wild plum trees in public areas.
Oakland North is continuing with our new feature. Every Wednesday, we will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s photo is by Kevin Meynell.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning a dedicated group of Temescal Aquatic Masters swimmers gather before the sun rises to participate in an organized swim work out that begins at 5:30 a.m. in the six-lane heated outdoor pool. The swimmers meet year round, rain or shine.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every Tuesday, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s Pablo the dog.
Burlesque dancers in Oakland now have a new way of showing off their fishnet stockings and sexy lingerie—as models for Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, an international alternative drawing movement. The East Bay branch of Dr. Sketchy’s had its premiere event Saturday afternoon at Layover Lounge, where more than a dozen artists—and even those who were a bit artistically-challenged—gathered to sketch three members of the local dance troupe, the Can-Cannibals.
Judging by the audience’s loud cheers, fifteen-year old Tyler Thompson’s opera rendition of Justice Bao, a Chinese judge who fought government corruption, was spot-on. He hit all the notes, his Mandarin flawless, and the cheers he received from the nearly-packed Rawley Farnsworth Theater at Skyline High School Saturday evening were the loudest of the night at a performance to raise money for the Purple Silk Music Education Foundation.